The man accused in the honour killings of his three teenage daughters and one of his wives told a police interrogator that his children were liars, an Ontario court heard Wednesday.
Mohammad Shafia, 58, along with his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya and son Hamed, are on trial in Kingston, Ont., charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
On Wednesday, the jury saw the video of the police interrogation of Shafia after he was arrested in July 2009.
His three daughters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with his other wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, had been found dead in a submerged car in June 2009 in the Rideau Canal.
In the video, Shafia told police that his children were "pure and sinless" and that his life has been ruined by their deaths.
"I swear to God I loved them with my heart," Shafia said. "I wish God would have taken my life and spared their lives."
But he also tells the interrogator that his children told authorities he was beating them.
"They told a lot of lies…They had said something like that, ‘My dad is beating me,'" Shafia said. "If, for example they were going somewhere they didn't say the truth. They are lying."
Shafia also referred to Rona Amir Mohammad as his cousin, not his wife.
During Yahya's interrogation she weeps over photos of her children, is quiet and reluctant to answer questions. She eventually tells the interrogator that the three were present when the car went into the water.
In the video, Yahya pins the blame on her husband, though the court heard on Wednesday that the morning after the interrogation she recanted everything she'd said.
Shafia, Yahya and their son have each pleaded not guilty.
With files from The Canadian Press
