A Maricopa County Superior Court jury on Tuesday found an Iraqi immigrant guilty of running down his daughter and another woman in a Peoria parking lot in October 2009.
Faleh Hassan Al-Maleki was found guilty of second-degree murder for killing his daughter Noor, 20, and of aggravated assault for injuring her boyfriend’s mother, Amal Khalaf, 41. He was also found guilty of two counts of leaving the scene of a fatal or injury accident.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys did not dispute that Al-Maleki hit the two women with the Jeep he was driving. But they disagreed on whether he meant to do it.
In the worst scenario for the defense, Al-Maleki could have been convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. The jury also was weighing the lesser offenses of second-degree murder and aggravated assault. Jurors will reconvene today at 1:30 p.m. to determine if there are aggravating factors that would call for harsher sentences for Al-Maleki. Prosecutor Laura Reckart is alleging that Al-Maleki was lying in wait, that he inflicted serious injury and that he caused physical, financial and emotional harm to his victims.
At sentencing, he faces 10 to 22 years in prison for second-degree murder, five to 15 years for aggravated assault, and two to nearly nine years for leaving the scene. All of those sentences would be stacked on top of one another, meaning the 50-year-old Al-Maleki faces 17 to nearly 46 years in prison.
Al-Maleki’s attorneys said the Glendale man drove his Jeep toward the two women but swerved to avoid Khalaf and tragically hit his daughter.
His actions were reckless, attorneys said.
“Faleh didn’t intend to hurt anyone,” public defender Jeffrey Kirchler said. “What happened that day was an accident, a horrible accident.”
Attorneys acknowledged that Al-Maleki was saddened by his daughter’s decision to move out of his home in 2009. The Iraqi immigrant wiped tears from his eyes during closing statements Monday, as Kirchler told jurors about Al-Maleki’s fears that Khalaf’s family was a negative influence on his daughter.
But Al-Maleki never intended to kill his first-born child, Kirchler said.
Police and prosecutors told a different story.
They said Al-Maleki was enraged by his daughter’s choices and felt she had dishonored him, so when he saw her and the woman she had gone to live with in the parking lot, he seized the opportunity.
Police estimated Al-Maleki was traveling at least 20 mph when he hit the two women.
If Al-Maleki had pressed his foot on the brake, Noor would likely still be alive and Khalaf would not have been injured, Reckart said.
“The evidence proves way beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended, wanted and desired to erase Noor and Amal from his life and this Earth,” she said.