Sumaia al Najjar and her husband had gone to extreme lengths to get their young family out of war-torn Syria and into western Europe, claiming asylum in the Netherlands – but it seemed as if the gamble had been worth it.
They quickly obtained a decent council house in a pleasant provincial Dutch town, that husband had been given state financial assistance to start a growing catering business and the children were enrolled in good schools.
But fast forward eight years and it’s plain from her tear-lined face and wails of distress that the outcome of the decision to move west has torn Mrs al Najjar’s family apart.
Her daughter Ryan has been brutally murdered in a so-called honour killing, her two sons are starting jail terms over aiding her death, and her murderous husband is back in Syria, living with another woman with whom he is starting a new family.
And it’s that husband that Sumaia blames for everything that has happened, her voice is spitting with contempt as she says of Khaled al Najjar: ‘He has destroyed my whole family.’
The disturbing details of Ryan’s murder – for having become ‘too westernised’ – have made the Dutch case a national and international cause célèbre in recent weeks.
And today the Daily Mail can provide the clearest picture yet of how the al Najjar family’s horrifying disintegration unfolded as 43-year-old matriarch Sumaia – who has never even been publicly pictured before – tells her story for the first time.
In an extraordinary interview – for which she was not paid – Mrs al Najjar has discussed in detail how she blames her husband for the family’s destruction, described her profound grief over what happened to Ryan, and reflected on how she will deal with her surviving daughters in the light of her experience.
In an extraordinary interview with the Daily Mail, Sumaia al Najjar (pictured, at the door of the family home), 43, whose daughter Ryan was brutally murdered by her father and two brothers in a so-called honour killing, has opened up in detail about her profound grief
Ryan al Najjar (pictured), 18, was found bound and gagged, face down in a pond in a remote country park in the Netherlands, where the family live, just a month after she turned 18
This week a Dutch court sentenced Ryan’s father Khaled al Najjar (pictured) in absentia – he is now living back in the family’s native Syria, with a new woman he is about to start a family with – to 30 years in jail for orchestrating the killing of his own daughter. Her brothers Muhanad, 25, and Muhamad, 24, were jailed for 20 years each for assisting him
Our interview with Mrs al Najjar took place in her end-of-terrace house (pictured) in the Dutch village of Joure, where she settled with her husband and family in 2016 after fleeing the Syrian civil war
Ryan was found bound and gagged, face down in a pond in a remote country park just a month after she turned 18.
Her murder had been the culmination of years of conflict between the girl, her parents and the wider family, who were at odds over how she dressed and behaved.
This week a Dutch court sentenced Khaled in absentia to 30 years in jail for orchestrating the killing of his own daughter who he blamed for shaming his family with her lifestyle – and his ex–wife is desperate to see him extradited back to Holland so he can serve this term.
But the court also handed out sentences of 20 years each to Ryan’s brothers Muhanad, 25, and Muhamad, 24, for assisting their father in her murder – and their mother does not accept they were involved.
Instead their 43-year-old mother blames her runaway ex-husband solely both for killing Ryan then wrongly implicating her sons in the murder and leaving them to take the blame alone.
Their trial also heard evidence that appeared to implicate Mrs al Najjar herself in the plot against Ryan: a message sent to a family WhatsApp group, apparently by her said: ‘She [Ryan] is a slut and should be killed.’
But prior to conducting this interview the Mail established with Dutch prosecutors that they are not convinced Mrs al Najjar sent this vile message – something she strongly denies – and believe that it was likely sent by her controlling husband from her phone as he tried to ramp up ill feeling against the teenager he had come to hate.
Our interview with Mrs al Najjar took place in her end-of-terrace house in the Dutch village of Joure, where she settled with her husband and family in 2016 after fleeing the Syrian civil war.
She invited us into the seven-room council house, which still has a Syrian flag flying from a top-floor bedroom, to tell how the family had got to Holland by first sending one of their boys, then just 15, alone on the treacherous illegal migrant journey to Europe.
The boy first traveled to Greece by inflatable boat and then overland onto northern Europe where he finally claimed asylum in the Netherlands – and was then under Dutch laws able to bring the rest of his family to join him.
They were given temporary accommodation before moving into a three bedroom house in Joure and where Khaled started a pizza shop business with the help of his sons – and the family’s integration was seen as so successful they were even featured as role models in a local media report.
But Sumaia says that behind this outwardly happy family image, the whole family was living in fear of her brutal husband – who definitely wasn’t being softened by liberal western social attitudes.
‘He was a violent man,’ she says. ‘He used to break things and beat me and his children up, beat all of us.
‘And then he used to refuse to accept that he was wrong and beat us up again…He beat us up a bit less since we settled in Joure but he still was violent.
‘He has beaten Muhanad, his eldest, up many times and kicked him out of the house.
‘Muhanad was terrified of him.’
But gradually Khaled’s violent rages started focusing increasingly on daughter Ryan, who was having her own problems integrating.
Breaking down in tears, Sumaia told how Ryan began to be picked on by school bullies because of the headscarf her family expected her to wear.
From the outside, the family appeared happy and well-integrated. But in reality, they were living in fear of Sumaia’s brutal husband – and gradually, his violent rages started focusing increasingly on daughter Ryan (pictured), after she stopped wearing her headscarf to appease school bullies, started smoking, and her conservative Muslim father suspected her of flirting with boys
Amid his outbursts, the young girl even sought help from the brothers now convicted over her death. Pictured: Muhanad, left, and Muhamad, right, in a court sketch
The court concluded Ryan was murdered because she had rejected her family’s Islamic upbringing. Her body was found wrapped in 18 metres of duct tape in shallow water at the nearby Oostvarrdersplassen nature reserve (pictured)
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Her mother recalls: ‘Ryan was a good girl.
‘She used to study the Koran, did her house duties and learned how to pray.
‘But Ryan was bullied at school all the time for wearing her white scarf.
‘Ryan started to rebel when she was around 15 years old.
‘She stopped wearing scarfs and started smoking. She had many friends, boys and girls.’
And when she took to removing her scarf to appease the bullies and behaving like them to fit in, she began to get bullied at home instead – and in a manner far, far worse than at school.
The trial heard how patriarchal conservative Muslim Khaled became enraged by Ryan’s refusal to wear the headscarf as well as her interest in making TikTok videos and the suspicion she had begun flirting with boys.
One of Ryan’s sisters, Iman, 27, the eldest girl, sat in on our interview with her mother and chimed in to support her on this aspect of their lives.
She recalled: ‘My father was a temperamental and unjust man, difficult to live with because he wanted everything to be as he said, even when it was wrong.
‘No one dared to question his request or tell him he was wrong. Tension and fear permeated the house because of him. He was very unfair and temperamental toward my siblings, and he beat and threatened me.
‘Ryan was bullied at school because of her hijab. Since then, Ryan has changed and become stubborn. My father beat her, after which she went to school and never came home.’
So terrified was Ryan of her violent father that she fled the family home and entered the Dutch care system to avoid his violence.
And Iman says that she also sought help from the brothers now convicted over her death.
‘She always sought refuge with my brothers, Muhannad and Muhammad,’ she insists. ‘Because they were our safety net and we trusted them completely. Muhannad and Muhammad were like fathers to us, and now we need them so much.’
Her mother acknowledges that it wasn’t just her husband – and that she had issues with Ryan’s lifestyle choices too.
Sumaia went on: ‘We are a conservative family. I didn’t like what Ryan was doing but I guess her rebellion stemmed from all the bullying she received in the Dutch school…[or] maybe Ryan had bad friends.
‘It was difficult, I thought that Ryan would grow up if I let her not wear the scarf and later I thought she might change her mind;
‘Then she left the house and stopped talking to us.’
But it’s clear she sees only one person responsible for Ryan’s death – her husband.
Sumaia said: ‘I never want to see him or hear from him again or anyone from his family. I am so sorrowful he has been my husband.
It’s clear Sumaia sees only one person responsible for Ryan’s death – her husband. Pictured: Ryan’s grave in the Netherlands
‘May God never forgive him. The children will never forgive him – or forget him. He should have taken responsibility for his crime.’
In fact, despite fleeing Holland via Germany to get back to Syria – which has no extradition agreement with the Netherlands – once safely there Khaled al Najjar did take responsibility in a sense.
But this was apparently an attempt to save his two sons from prosecution: Khaled wrote emails to the Telegraaf and Leeuwarder Courant newspapers insisting it was he alone who murdered Ryan and that his sons were not involved.
He even said that he would return to Europe to face justice though unsurprisingly he has not kept this promise – and in his absence her sons were left to face the judicial system alone.
The court concluded that Ryan was murdered because she had rejected her family’s Islamic upbringing.
Her body was found wrapped in 18 metres of duct tape in shallow water at the nearby Oostvarrdersplassen nature reserve and traces of Khaled’s DNA were found under her fingernails and on the tape.
The evidence indicated she was still alive when she was thrown into the water and in a callous message to his family, Khaled later said: ‘My mistake was not digging a hole for her.’
Expert evidence placed the two brothers at the scene as data extrapolated from their mobile phones incriminated them, as did algae found on the soles of their shoes.
Traffic cameras and GPS signals from the mobile phones also showed the brothers driving from Joure to Rotterdam where they picked up Ryan and then drove her towards the nature reserve.
The panel of five judges, having heard how the two brothers had driven their sister to the isolated beauty spot and left her alone with her father, ruled that they were culpable for her murder too.
The court ruled that, although it could not ‘establish the roles of the sons in Ryan’s killing, it was irrelevant to the question of guilt’.
And it is this as much as Ryan’s murder that haunts her mother.
But a panel of five judges, having heard how the two brothers had driven their sister to the isolated beauty spot and left her alone with her father (pictured), ruled that they were culpable for her murder too
She wept as she told us: ‘It was not right to punish my sons for what their father had done.
‘The verdict was unjust. My boys Muhanad and Muhamad did nothing.
‘My boys brought Ryan from Rotterdam where she was staying with friends to talk to their father – they thought it would be a good thing.
‘Their father stopped them in the street and told them to leave so that he could talk to Ryan.
‘They were wrong and guilty of this [leaving Ryan alone with her father] but they don’t deserve 20 years each.
‘There is no evidence they were involved in any crime. It’s so unfair to put my boys in prison for the crime of their father.
‘We were so depressed when we learned about the verdict and cried a lot. Khaled destroyed our family – we are all destroyed.
‘My children are in shock about the verdict on top of their distress about the murder of their sister.
‘Our story became so huge the Dutch Court thought they better punish my sons. If I die of a heart attack, I blame the Dutch Court.’
‘I might die and my sons will still be in prison.’
The Daily Mail has established Khaled is living near the town of Iblid in Syria and has remarried.
Sumaia made her feelings about this plain.
‘I do not care about him,’ she raged. ‘He is no longer my husband.
‘We have had no contact with him since he confessed to killing my daughter Ryan. The next day he fled to Germany.’
‘We heard from family members that he has remarried, I have no idea what else he is doing or if has had any children…He will never come back.’
And she is convinced that Khaled fleeing has led to her sons being wrongly blamed for Ryan’s murder: ‘No one believes Muhanad and Muhamad [but] they have done nothing wrong!
‘Pity my boys – they will spend 20 years in prison. I didn’t escape the war to watch my sons rot in prison…’
Her daughter, Iman, agrees: ‘[My father] is married and has started a family.
‘The perpetrator [of Ryan’s death] is my father. He is an unjust man.
‘Since Ryan’s death and the arrest of my brothers, Muhannad and Muhammad, my family has been deeply saddened, and everything feels strange.
‘I’m convinced they’re innocent and didn’t do anything against Ryan.
‘We have become victims of societal injustice, and that is truly terrible. There is constant grief in the family. We miss my brothers terribly.
Fast forward four years from the family’s arrival in the Netherlands, it’s plain from Sumaia’s tear-lined face and wails of distress that the outcome of the decision to move west has torn Mrs al Najjar’s family apart. Pictured: The building in Joure, Holland, where the family were housed after coming to the country in 2017
‘The family is fragmented. Muhannad and Muhammad are currently in prison because of their abusive father, who now lives in Syria.
‘He is married and has started a family. Is this the justice the Netherlands is talking about? He is the murderer.’
When asked what she would do if her remaining daughters refused to wear a headscarf or rebelled in other ways, Mrs al Najjar was surprisingly rigid.
‘My other daughters are obedient,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t agree with my daughters if they ask not to wear scarfs anymore.’
Finally Sumaia returned to the subject of her daughter’s death, wailing: ‘We miss her every day.
‘May God bless her soul. I ask God to be kind to her….it was her destiny. We spend our time crying.’
