(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 31 - The uncle of Saman Abbas, an 18-year-old Pakistani-Italian woman murdered by her family at Novellara near Reggio Emilia on April 30 2021 for refusing an arranged marriage with an older man in Pakistan, has told police he did not kill her, judicial sources said Tuesday.
    The man, Danish Hasnain, accused by his nephew, Saman's brother, of strangling her, said that he did not do the deed but did accompany the young woman's two cousins, Nomanhulaq Nomanhulaq and Ikram Ijaz, to bury her body together.
    On November 2018 Hasnain took police to the place near the family home where they buried Abbas after 18 months of vain searches, even with sniffer dogs, because the body was too far down in the ground.
    Saman's father, Shabbar Abbas, is also awaiting trial for her murder, while her mother Nazia Shaheen is still on the run in Pakistan.
    Hasnain, the uncle, reportedly told police her cousins blamed the mother for the murder but he did not think she had done it either.
    The trial will start shortly. (ANSA).