Shafilea Ahmed Murder: Parents Go On Trial In Chester

The trial of two parents accused of murdering their daughter is due to start today.

Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed are charged with murdering their 17-year-old daughter Shafilea.

The teenager's decomposed remains were discovered in Cumbria in February 2004 after she disappeared from the family home in Warrington, Cheshire, in September 2003.

A jury of seven men and five women was sworn in at Chester Crown Court last week and the trial is due to be opened by the prosecution later today.

Ahmed and his wife, aged 52 and 49, of Liverpool Road, Warrington, both deny murder.

Shafilea was most likely strangled or suffocated, a pathologist told her inquest in 2008.

They were arrested on suspicion of her murder in 2010.

South Cumbria coroner Ian Smith recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.