Last updated: December 28, 2014


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Killer seeks shorter jail sentence after twice being found guilty of murdering his wife

Soltan Ahmad Aziz

Soltan Ahmad Azizi was found guilty of  the murder of his wife Marzieh Rahimi. Source: Supplied

AN AFGHAN refugee twice found guilty of murdering his wife after complaining she had become too Australian should receive a lesser sentence this time around, his barrister told the Supreme Court yesterday.

Soltan Ahmad Azizi was jailed for a minimum 17 years with a maximum of 22 in 2010 after he strangled wife Marzieh Rahimi with her veil at their Hampton Park home in front of their three-month-old baby and 22-month-old toddler.

His lawyers successfully won a retrial after arguing jurors were subjected to inadmissible or prejudicial evidence.

After a retrial, a second jury found Azizi guilty of murder in December last year.

At his Supreme Court pre-sentence plea hearing yesterday, prosecutor Michele Williams, SC, told Justice Stephen Kaye that the same effective sentence should be handed to Azizi.

But defence counsel Julian McMahon told the court he was seeking a lower term, citing differences between the nature of the evidence presented in the first and second trials.

Mr McMahon submitted that no evidence existed in the second trial to suggest Azizi had been violent or abusive toward his wife before the extremely hot day he strangled her.

He said the first trial had been more "condemnatory” in nature than the second.

Mr McMahon said his client, who speaks little English, would have to live with the legacy of leaving his children bereft of a mother, and would have to endure jail the whole time his children spent growing up.

Mr McMahon suggested this murder, which was not planned or pre-determined, was at the lower end of the scale compared with the different kinds of murders that came before the court.

Ms Williams submitted that if the murder was the result of unexplained violence, then Justice Kaye should accept Azizi was a man who had not accepted responsibility for his actions.

Ms Williams said it was a more likely scenario that Ms Rahimi wanted to leave her husband, and he killed "in an explosion of rage”.

"The children are left without a mother for one simple fact – he killed her,” Ms Williams said.

"He murdered her.”

Justice Kaye will sentence Azizi on a date to be fixed.