A father who was filmed attacking his daughter in what police say was an attempted honor killing was more concerned about his car being impounded than he was his family when police came to arrest him.
DailyMail.com translated the words Ihsan Ali yelled to his wife and daughter as he was hauled away in handcuffs after the shocking incident on October 18.
He is accused of attacking the girl, 17, in a frenzy outside Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington, after she refused an arranged marriage with an older man in her family’s native Iraq.
The girl ran from her house to the school, where a group of shocked onlookers watched her father pounce on her.
Video of the horrifying attack was widely shared. Now, Ali’s shocking words – spoken in Arabic minutes later after his arrest – can also be revealed.
‘Zahraa, Zahraa, come here,’ he shouted towards his wife, who has also been charged.
‘Haneen, Zahraa, take the car from them and drive it away so they don’t steal it. They took the car! They’re going to steal it!
‘The car… they’ll steal it!’ he screamed.
Ali, 44, and his wife Zahraa Subhi Mohsin Ali, 40, were charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, and assault after the attack on October 18.
Police bodycam footage obtained by DailyMail.com under freedom of information showed the aftermath of the attack minutes later when officers arrived at the school at 2.18pm.
Ihsan Ali, 44, allegedly tried to strangle his daughter in an ‘honor killing’ outside her school and was charged with attempted murder
By then, the girl’s brave 16-year-old boyfriend and his classmates had fought off Ihsan, saving her life, and adult passerby Josh Wagner restrained him on the ground.
Ihsan was frog marched to a police car by the first cop on the scene, Officer Sophal Heang, who handcuffed him with Wagner’s help.
Ihsan appeared to claim police would ‘steal’ his vehicle – by seizing it as evidence – unless his family took it away.
He was transferred to another officer’s police car, and again demanded to speak with his wife and yelled to her in Arabic.
‘Zahraa, Zahraa, move the car somewhere safe because these are thieves; they will steal it!’ he yelled.
‘Move the car, or they will steal it! Take the car from them!
Ihsan, in contrast to his wife, refused to speak to the police, telling them, ‘I have nothing to say’.
Instead, he continued yelling to her: ‘Zahraa, come here for a moment. Zahraa, come. Come, Zahraa, take this, come!’
He refused to get in car while he yelled to Zahraa, and was only convinced to sit inside after officers promised to bring her to him.
Ishan’s eldest daughter Haneen, 21, and wife Zahraa Subhi Mohsin Ali, 40, were also involved. Zahraa was also charged with attempted murder but Haneen is not charged with a crime
Ihsan, at another point, demanded to speak to the daughter he allegedly tried to murder moments earlier, but never asked about her welfare.
Both the girl and her boyfriend, who was punched in the face while defending her, suffered numerous injuries.
The vast majority of the released footage is from the perspective of one of the police officers who arrived at the scene.
‘He was trying to kill her,’ one of several students a few feet away interjected, in reference to Ihsan’s alleged attack on his daughter.
‘My sister ran away, my mom tried to get her to talk with her… but there was this guy who held her, really aggressive,’ Haneen claimed, likely about her sister’s boyfriend.
‘They’re in there (gestures to the school building), they ran away inside.’
Ihsan was hauled to his feet and marched to a police car past his wife Zahraa, who was hysterically wailing and crying.
Police were unaware at this point that she had allegedly also tried to strangle her daughter too.
The students say she also tried to fend them away when they tried to intervene.
Ihsan several times demanded to speak to the daughter he allegedly tried to murder.
By the time police arrived, the girl’s brave 16-year-old boyfriend and his classmates had fought off Ihsan, saving her life, and adult passerby Josh Wagner restrained him on the ground
Wagner restraining Ihsan when the first cop on the scene, Officer Sophal Heang, arrived at 2.18pm on October 18. Haneen is standing behind them talking on her phone
Heang handcuffed Ihsan while Wagner helped hold him down until backup arrived
‘You will not speak to your daughter,’ Officer Sophal Heang replied. ‘We’re investigating a criminal investigation right now.’
Ihsan replied: ‘Just let me tell her to come home – not like that. If I tell her to go home, she will go home.’
Heang ignored him and closed the trunk. He later identified Ihsan as the ‘primary aggressor’ during a call to his supervisors.
‘According to the school staff she ran inside to the admin building and she was just saying somebody was trying to hurt her… probably her dad,’ Heang explained in the call.
‘Dad confronted her and she wasn’t willing to go home with him and he ends up getting behind her and choking her, dragging her, trying to get her to come [with him],’ he said.
Heang then explained to fellow officers at the scene that he met with Ihsan and Zahraa that morning when they reported her as a runaway.
Police accompanied them to her boyfriend’s house, where his parents told them she wasn’t there and his son was in school, but they refused to believe him.
Ihsan is seen in the bodycam sitting in Officer Heang’s patrol car. His jacket was torn in the struggle and dirt pressed into one side of his face where Wagner held him down. Heang tried to read him his Miranda rights as he sat there, but he refused to respond
Ihsan several times demanded to speak to the daughter he allegedly tried to murder
Heang said he told Ihsan not to go to the school and make a scene, but evidently he went anyway.
A few minutes later, the three officers discussed what to do with the girl, who was still holed up inside the school before being taken to hospital.
‘What are we going to do with the kid? Because they (Zahraa and Haneen) are all worked up, still,’ Heang said.
‘She’s 17, she doesn’t want to go home to the parents, but they’re the legal guardian.’
One of the other officers replied: ‘Is she gonna start choking her to get her home?’ which Heang conceded was a good point.
‘She doesn’t feel safe going home because her older sister hit her with a broom, allegedly, this summertime,’ the third policeman added.
They started discussing which women’s shelter would be the best place to send her to.
Heang transferred Ihsan to another officer’s police car, and Ihsan again demanded to speak with his wife and yelled to her in Arabic
He refused to get in car while he yelled more to Zahraa, and was only convinced to sit inside after officers promised to bring her to him
Heang walked over to Zahraa and Haneen, who were arguing with another officer about speaking to Ihsan and the girl.
Haneen insisted Ihsan did nothing wrong, and claimed someone kicked her in the face and ‘he pushed my mom, and my dad, he grabbed him with another person and put him to the ground’.
‘He (Ihsan) didn’t do… yes, a lot of students were already out. I’m recording right now, I’ll show you later, I want to talk to my dad right now,’ she said.
‘OK, well, that’s not happening the way you’re acting – you need to calm down,’ another policeman told her.
‘Take a deep breath, maybe in five minutes – I can’t have you screaming out here in the school parking lot, that’s unacceptable.’
Heang then tried talking to the pair, asking why if they saw that the girl was at the school they didn’t just tell the police instead of confronting her.
‘This is not fair, like which one is it? is it this one, is it that?’ Haneen screamed back while wildly gesticulating.
‘What are you asking?’ Heang asked.
‘Can I talk to my dad or can I talk to my sister? It has to be one of them.’
Heang told her that police gave them their word they would let her and Zahraa speak to Ihsan, but they needed to calm down first.
Heang walked over to Zahraa (center) and Haneen (left), who were arguing with another officer about speaking to Ihsan and the girl
Zahraa was soon allowed to talk to Ihsan through the window of the police car, and officers warned Haneen she would be arrested if she didn’t wait her turn.
While Zahraa spoke to Ihsan, the details of which were not recorded on bodycam, Heang asked to see Haneen’s videos.
She played it for him, and it appeared to show Wagner restraining Ihsan.
‘He was choking him, this dude,’ she said, claiming he punched her and threw her phone to the ground.
‘Why are they choking him? This is not a crime either? They’re choking, that’s my father, they’re choking him down,’ she said.
Heang told her they were detaining him, and ‘he had a right to be detained’.
Haneen started to go into meltdown, screaming, ‘What do I do now? What do you want me to do? Who’s gonna help?’
Heang said she and her mother would be fine, but Haneen wailed, ‘No, it’s not fine, how is this fine? How can you say that?’
Zahraa soon returned and another of her three daughters called Haneen, and she was handed the phone. She walked away and talked on the phone for several minutes.
‘I’m in the street, they took him!’ she said in Arabic, in the part of the call that was audible on the bodycam footage.
‘I’m going home because he told me I have to leave. I just want him to see me… just to see me.’
Heang asked to see Haneen’s videos. She played it for him, and it appeared to show Wagner restraining Ihsan
Zahraa paces around the car park loudly talking to her third daughter in Arabic
After the call was over, Zahraa yelled hysterically about wanting to see her daughter and collapsed to the ground in tears.
As she wailed, Heang got Haneen to convince her mother to go home, as she was banned from school property after an earlier incident with the girl’s boyfriend.
After a short conversation in Arabic, they walked away to their car and the footage ended.
Police did not realize Zahraa also allegedly tried to kill her daughter until four days later, leaving her free to continue looking for her daughter, who was in hiding.
She was finally detained by customs officers on the night of October 22 while trying to cross into Canada.
Zahraa was taken into custody on a domestic assault warrant without incident and booked into the Whatcom County Jail until Lacey Police arrived to pick her up.
Victor Barnes, the father of the girl’s boyfriend, told DailyMail.com that Zahraa had fled to the border after prosecutors moved to charge her along with Ihsan.
He claimed Zahraa was in court with Haneen at Ihsan’s arraignment when prosecutors said they believed she was also a threat and were seeking an arrest warrant.
‘The second she hears that, she runs out the courtroom,’ said Barnes, adding that Haneen text her with updates as the hearing continued.
Zahraa yelled hysterically about wanting to see her daughter and collapsed to the ground in tears
Haneen convinces her mother that they need to leave the school, and they walk away to their car together
Barnes claimed Zahraa drove her youngest children, two boys aged five and three, into Canada and dropped them off with an uncle who lived there.
She then reportedly returned to Washington before trying to cross into Canada a second time.
During this time, police compiled statements from the girl, her boyfriend, and other witnesses and issued an arrest warrant flagging her passport.
Barnes said the two older sisters were also with their uncle in Canada, but he wasn’t sure when or how they got there.
He explained that his son started dating the girl in February 2024, and her family kept it a secret from her father, who was often out of town running his business.
‘He’s an abusive man. So they just didn’t tell him because… they may think he’ll fly off the handle and do something crazy like he did,’ he said.
He said his wife, JeTe Drake, tried to arrange a meeting with Zahraa months earlier to discuss their children’s relationship, but phone conversations degenerated into ‘a lot of yelling’ as Haneen tried to translate.
They heard nothing until September 16 when Zahraa appeared outside the school, and Barnes claimed ‘tried to kidnap his son’.
Haneen, 21, is accused of trying to fend off her younger sister’s classmates so Zahraa could allegedly choke the girl to death in the ‘honor killing’. Haneen has not been charged
He said CCTV showed Zahraa grabbing the teen and trying to drag him away with her, but he was stronger than her. After a couple of steps, he pulled his arm away and told her not to touch him.
Barnes claimed Zahraa called his son a ‘thug and a thief’ but the rest of her yelling was unintelligible.
Timberline High sent her a letter the next day advising that as she was seen ‘grabbing and yelling at’ a student, she would be charged with trespassing if she came to the school again.
Barnes eventually called Ihsan to tell him about his daughter’s secret relationship, and that he was considering pressing charges against Zahraa.
Ihsan responded to the situation by pulling the girl out of school, smashing her phone so they couldn’t communicate, and buying plane tickets to Iraq.
‘So they wanted to seclude her and during this period of time, that’s when he was threatening to kill her and was starving her and crazy, crazy stuff,’ Barnes claimed.
The girl outlined shocking alleged abuse at the hands of her father in an interview with police days after the attack, and claimed one of her brothers, who is autistic, was treated even worse.
Josh Wagner (pictured), who was driving by the school and stopped to break up what he thought was a school fight, restrained Ihsan until police arrived
Barnes said his son didn’t see or hear from the girl until she showed up at the school on October 18, asking for help.
After speaking with Ihsan, Barnes got a protective order against Zahraa on his son’s behalf, and then got one against Ihsan after the girl was attacked.
‘At the end of the school day, the school made my child responsible for this girl’s safety by asking him to help this girl get on the bus,’ he wrote in the application.
‘They continued to put this girl’s family situation in the lap of my child as if he’s an adult and understands the gravity of everything.’
Barnes said his son was still not doing well mentally after he was allegedly punched in the face by Ihsan, then had to watch his girlfriend almost be murdered in front of him as he desperately tried to save her.
‘He’s just trying to keep it together… trying to not feel so tensed up all the time,’ he said, noting he had a breakdown in late November.
On the morning of October 18, he said the girl’s parents showed up at his house with police demanding to know where she was.
Barnes told them she was wasn’t there and would presumably be at the school, then texted his son to warn him.
‘She runs away from home because they wanted to fly her out of the country that day – she’s afraid,’ he said.
‘She shows up at the school and my son’s class and the teacher helps her because she looks very malnourished.’
Victor Barnes (pictured), the father of the girl’s boyfriend, explained how the attack unfolded – and the events before it – as told to him by his son
Barnes said school officials took her to a room and eventually found a safe place for her to go, but did not offer to help her get there.
‘They know she’s in danger, they know her circumstances and situation, but they insist for her to take public transportation to get to her safe destination – without any type of chaperone,’ he said.
The girl and her boyfriend walked to the bus stop at the front of the school and she spotted her father’s pickup truck outside.
Suddenly, Ishan emerged from the truck and confronted them, yelling at his daughter in Arabic.
Barnes said another student, who spoke Arabic, yelled back, ‘She doesn’t want to go back with you. Leave her alone.’
‘He didn’t like what the kid said, he loses his mind and punches my son in the face,’ Barnes alleged.
Court documents explained that another student told police the boyfriend stood in front of her and was sent ‘flying onto the concrete’ when he was punched.
Ishan allegedly put his daughter in a headlock and tried to choke her to death, saying, ‘It’s not right… you are not supposed to do this’, she told police.
These are some of the cuts, welts, and broken bones the teenage girl suffered when her parents allegedly tried to strangle her in an ‘honor killing’
The girl was taken to Providence St Peter Hospital in Olympia for treatment and a strangulation exam
Barnes said his son ‘starts to see her eyes roll back, and her arms start flailing’ before she went limp and unconscious as he tried to save her.
Other students described similar horrifying scenes to police, and her boyfriend told them he thought she was going to die.
Her boyfriend managed to subdue him, along with other students, by repeatedly punching Ishan in the head until he was dazed and let go, prosecutors said.
Zahraa then allegedly entered the fray and also tried to choke her daughter to death, but was separated by the growing group of kids.
‘Her other daughter (Haneen), which is the girl’s older sister, is trying to fight the other kids away,’ Barnes said, which the girl also told police.
‘But it’s too many other kids and mom isn’t as strong as that, so they eventually grab the girl away from mom.’
The girl told police she fled inside with her boyfriend yelling, ‘My dad was trying to kill me’ as Zahraa allegedly pursued her to the school doors, but wasn’t let in.
The boyfriend suffered a boxer’s fracture as he tried to get Ishan off his girlfriend, which is now in a cast. The girl was taken to Providence St Peter Hospital in Olympia for treatment and a strangulation exam.
The girl’s 16-year-old boyfriend in the clothes he was wearing during the attack
Police said they saw scratches on her neck and she complained of neck, throat, and jaw pain, and had difficulty swallowing.
‘She believes she lost consciousness three to four times during the incident,’ court documents alleged, adding that at one point she woke up with dirt pressed into her face.
‘[The girl] stated that she thought she was going to die.’
Ihsan was not initially charged with attempted murder, and released from jail on October 24 on just a $150,000 bond after a hearing in Thurston County Superior Court before Judge John Skinder.
Zahraa faced a different judge – Christopher Lanese – on the same day, but she was charged with attempted murder and held on $500,000 bail.
Almost two weeks after his release, on November 5, second-degree attempted murder was finally added to Ihsan’s charges.
Ihsan was re-arrested and his bail raised to $1 million, which was too much for him to pay. He remains in jail, while Zahraa’s bond was unchanged.
