‘Dad killed Mum, now I’m a father too’, says Arman Abrahimzadeh

Arman Abrahimzadeh has chosen Father’s Day to reveal a gruelling confrontaton with his father after the most brazen domestic violence murder South Australia has seen.

Arman Abrahimzadeh at Adelaide’s Yatala prison where his father Zialloh is serving time for murdering Arman’s mother Zahra. Picture: Sam Roberts

It was the most brazen domestic violence murder South Australia has seen: mother of three Zahra Abrahimzadeh stabbed to death by her estranged husband Zialloh in front of 300 horrified guests celebrating the 2010 Persian New Year at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

Twelve years on, Zahra’s son Arman made the extraordinary decision to visit his father inside Adelaide’s notorious Yatala Labour Prison to confront him over his mother’s death and the lifetime of violence the family endured.

Arman has chosen this Father’s Day weekend to reveal full details of his gruelling 75-minute conversation with his father in a special feature in today’s The Weekend Australian Magazine.

Arman and his sisters, Atena and Anita, were at the Convention Centre that night as their mother was being aided by paramedics who worked desperately to try to keep her alive.

Arman told The Weekend Australian he almost knew that night was coming. It was the culmination of years of abuse towards him, his older sister, but most of all his mother, which reached a crescendo 12 months before Zahra’s death when she packed up her children and fled.

Despite securing a restraining order and initiating plans for divorce, Zahra was still powerless against her husband, who a year earlier armed himself with knives and threatened to kill the entire family. It was at that point fled with her children, with Zialloh vowing to “make history” with what he had planned for them.

In today’s Weekend Australian Magazine, Arman Abrahimzadeh reveals what it was like to confront the man who killed his mother on what was her 44th birthday.

He also goes through the planning involved in preparing himself mentally for the encounter – much of it stemming from his status as a recently married husband and new father with a busy job who is juggling the demands of family and working life.

“Dad would use all sorts of things as an excuse for the way he behaved – work, family, culture, his upbringing,” Arman reveals in the moving interview.

“It’s a total cop-out. Other ­people get busy, other people have family or financial pressures, other people come from strict cultural backgrounds but don’t end up beating their kids and murdering their partners.”

Zialloh Abrahimzadeh.

Arman says the process of being brought up in such a violently dysfunctional household has made him reassess how he goes about his role as husband to Genevieve and father to two-year-old son Raphael, while also juggling a busy working life as a senior planning manager and Adelaide City Councillor.

He took six months off work when his son was 10 months old, playing what is normally the mother’s role of primary carer, and believes that better systems of parental leave for fathers could give men a better perspective on their role within the family unit. “Not only did the experience allow me to better bond with my son but it also gave me some insight into what it’s like to be a stay-at-home parent,” he says.

Zahra with Arman before her death.

Arman reveals that the loss of his mother – and also his father on account of his crimes – meant his new role as a dad brought with it a sense of emptiness as he negotiated the challenges of being a parent without any input from his own.

“Fatherhood so far has been amazing but challenging at the same time,” he says. “I am blessed with supportive and hands-on parents-in-law. My sisters are also very helpful but not having either parent around during this phase of my life has been difficult.

“I felt that everyone offered parenting advice and shared their experience with me. Some of it was extremely useful and I appreciated it and frankly loved the fact that people around me felt comfortable sharing it. But truth be told, I ­wanted to get this advice from my parents. So my parents’ absence was highlighted even more when I became a father.”