A Syrian man who murdered his 18-year-old daughter in a so-called “honour killing” before fleeing the county has been given a 30-year jail sentence.

Khaled al Najjar was convicted in absentia in Lelystad alongside his two sons, Muhanad, 25, and Mohamed, 23, who were in court. They were given 20 years each for complicity in the murder of their sister, Ryan, in May 2024.

The court heard Ryan was bound and gagged with 18 metres of duct tape before being drowned in a shallow pool in the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve.

Traces of her father’s DNA were found on the duct tape and under her fingernails. The evidence indicated she was still alive when she was thrown into the water.

Khaled, 53, then fled to northern Syria, where he remarried and later wrote a letter to the Telegraaf newspaper in which he admitted murdering his daughter.

The court said Ryan’s family had killed her because she rejected the values of her strict Islamic upbringing while living in Joure, Friesland.

Since 2022 she had been taken into care numerous times in different institutions and told police several times that her father and brothers had threatened and assaulted her.

“Burden”

“They saw her as a burden that needed to be got rid of,” the prosecution service said in court.

The two brothers denied any involvement in their sister’s death, calling their father Khaled a “psychopath” and a “monster”. But the court heard that they had been involved in covering up the killing, deleting photos and videos from Ryan’s phone and asking other family members to destroy chat records.

The brothers discussed various ways of killing Ryan with their father before the murder, including a suggestion by Mohamed to use a poisonous plant, the court heard.

“Destroying evidence was their only concern,” the court said in its judgment.

It is doubtful if Khaled will service his sentence, as there is no extradition treaty between Syria and the Netherlands and he is unlikely to return to the country voluntarily.