Mokhtar Hosseiniamraei has pleaded guilty to murdering wife Leila Alavi
LEILA Alavi’s workmates weren’t worried when she went to meet her husband. Then she didn’t come back and the true horror of what went on was revealed.
LEILA Alavi had been gone too long and her workmates were worried.
The popular 26-year-old had ducked away from Auburn’s Benjamin Hair Studio in Sydney’s west where she was an apprentice to meet with her estranged husband Mokhtar Hosseiniamraei.
He’d made contact that morning, Saturday, January 17, 2015, and asked to see her. She agreed and met him in the underground carpark of the Auburn Shopping Village — and that was the final time anyone other than Hosseiniamraei saw her alive.
Hosseiniamraei, now 34, last week pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Alavi and also of contravening an apprehended violence order.
He entered the pleas at a hearing at Burwood Local Court and is expected to face a sentencing hearing at the Supreme Court next month.
Ms Alavi’s workmate went to see where she was and expected to see her still speaking with her husband — instead he found her body inside her Holden Astra. Police said at the time she had been stabbed to death with a pair of scissors.
During hearings after his arrest, police alleged Hosseiniamraei had a “propensity for anger” that he couldn’t control and claimed he had physically assaulted her in the past.
A magistrate was also told he made an omission to the offence and forensic evidence linked him to the car where Ms Alavi was killed.
A colleague and friend, Menekse Cinar, told The Daily Telegraph she had seen him thousands of times.
Ms Cinar said she was “extremely close” to Ms Alavi but she had never told her of Hosseiniamraei being violent, only verbally abusive.
Police said the nature of their relationship was far more serious.
“The accused has shown a propensity for anger and being unable to control that anger,” police said in documents tendered in opposition to Hosseiniamraei being released on bail.
“It is alleged that the accused has physically assaulted his wife in the past, with incidents not reported.”
Ms Alavi immigrated to Australia in 2011 and married Hosseiniamraei. In the years that followed family members noticed a “darkening cloud” over their relationship.
After her murder, it emerged that Ms Alavi had been turned away from women’s refuges at least a dozen times in the months before her death because they had no room.
Instead she moved in with her sister Mitra Alavi in her Waterloo unit.
“Eight months before she died she come to my place and told me, ‘I can’t live with Mohktar because he is punching me and it is scary’,” Ms Alavi told The Sydney Morning Herald.
At a memorial service for her sister, Mitra Alavi, through a friend, told of her desire for a better life.
“She dreamt about becoming a pharmacist one day and was working her way to fulfil her dream,” the friend said, according to The Daily Telegraph.
“She had many friends in Sydney who loved her fun-loving spirit and beautiful smile. It is probably true to say that everyone who came into contact with her loved Leila.”
— with AAP
Originally published as Mokhtar Hosseiniamraei has pleaded guilty to murdering wife Leila Alavi
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