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A Melbourne man who allegedly strangled his wife and buried her beneath their backyard deck thought she was having an affair, a court has heard.
Nasir Ahmadi, 47, is facing a committal hearing charged with murdering his wife Zahara Rahimzadegan at their Ashwood home in Melbourne’s southeast.
Prosecutor Peter Rose said the couple had marital problems before Ahmadi reported his wife missing, two days after she vanished on December 16 last year.
‘He told people the deceased had gone off with the person he had suspected her of having an affair with,’ Mr Rose told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday.
The couple from Iran, also known as Nathan and Mandy, came to Australia with their two children as refugees in 1999, and later converted from Islam to Christianity.
Ms Rahimzadegan complained of physical abuse and spoke of leaving her husband, according to witness statements tendered to the court by the pair’s family and friends.
Mohammed Ismael Mirshahi, 53, met the pair as refugees in Pakistan in 1996 before moving with his family to Melbourne in 2000.
‘When Mino (Ms Rahimzadegan) spoke about the violence, she would say many times that she thought Nasir will kill her one day,’ Mr Mirshahi said in his witness statement.
‘She showed me blackening to her skin on her lower back and her upper arms.’
Ms Rahimzadegan’s cousin Saeid Yaghoobi Arangeh said the couple had separated for two months in 2007.
‘Mino said she had had enough of him and she cannot live with him anymore,’ he said in his statement.
‘Nathan would follow Mino everywhere and to me he seemed suspicious of her. He seemed to think that she was seeing someone else with every man she was associated with.’
Church friend Roya Agahi-Hovenden said she received a call on the morning of December 16 from a distressed Ms Rahimzadegan who wanted church officials not to intervene in the couple’s marital issues.
‘She was on fire. She was very agitated and upset,’ she said in her statement.
‘She said that she never stuck her nose into other’s people lives and so why don’t we leave her alone.
‘She was very hyped up and edgy.’
Ms Rahimzadegan’s brother Ali Rahimzadegan said he found it strange when Ahmadi showed him a supermarket shopping receipt to prove he was not at home at the time of his wife’s disappearance.
The body of the 46-year-old was found buried under a concrete pad and new timber deck in the backyard of the couple’s home.
The committal hearing will continue on Tuesday.
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