Honor (Season 2, Episode 2)
Premise: When a young Afghan woman is found raped, stabbed and stoned in a park, suspicion moves from her secret fiancé to her diplomat father and her brother.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 2
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Det. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March)
- Guest stars
- Anil Kumar as Jaleel Amir, Marshall Manesh as Saleh Amir, Susham Bedi as Aziza Amir, Firdous Bamji as Daoud Tarzi, Aasif Mandvi as Professor Husseini
- Director
- Alan Metzger
- Writers
- Story: Dawn DeNoon & Lisa Marie Petersen; Written by: Jonathan Greene & Robert F. Campbell
Summary
“Honor” begins with a young woman found in a park, raped, stabbed in the chest, beaten with stones and left for dead. The rape kit shows she had been a virgin and holds one man’s DNA, and the lab concludes she was dumped hours after the rape. An item she was wearing leads to Hanford University, where records identify her as Nafeesa Amir, 23, a journalism student from Afghanistan.
Her friend Annette Fleming says Nafeesa hid her Western clothes from her strict father, diplomat Saleh Amir, who tells the detectives his daughter is dead to the family. Her emergency contact, fabric importer Daoud Tarzi, first claims to be a new tenant named David Hamoud and is tackled when he runs. Her blood and his semen are on his sheets, and he is charged with rape and attempted murder. Tarzi passes a polygraph and says Nafeesa accepted his proposal and they had sex, though he admits pushing her, before they argued and she left. The detective who earlier came looking for her and beat him turns out to be Fin Tutuola, moonlighting for a security firm her father hired.
The DNA on the stones turns out to belong to a relative, and Nafeesa’s brother Jaleel lost his immunity as a diplomat’s dependent when he turned 21. Nafeesa dies of her injuries. A doorman says she arrived at her parents’ building that evening and Jaleel asked him for a large shopping cart. Detectives take Jaleel off a plane bound for home, and before he hears his rights he says he is proud he killed her. Saleh Amir complains to the State Department, but Cabot refuses to deal.
Judge Alan Ridenour admits the confession as an excited utterance, so Jaleel’s lawyer, Post, pleads insanity. In a psychiatric interview, Jaleel says his father made him watch his grandfather kill an aunt when he was eight. Cabot threatens a Batson challenge when Post strikes only women and Jews from the jury. Dr. Emil Skoda testifies that Jaleel knew his act was wrong, and Professor Husseini explains honor killing to the jury. Testifying, Jaleel calls the killing a duty, and Cabot accuses him of fleeing the consequences and following his father’s lead.
Spoiler, the ending: Fearing the insanity defense will succeed, the squad approaches Aziza Amir, who says her husband hit Nafeesa after learning she was no longer a virgin, fetched a knife and told Jaleel to kill her for the family’s honor. The jury convicts Jaleel of second-degree murder. Saleh Amir misses the verdict; he left the night before by limousine with heavy luggage and without his wife, and the episode ends as the detectives call for keys to the apartment.
Why it stands out
- Ice-T makes his first credited appearance as Fin Tutuola, introduced here working a private job for the victim’s father.
- The case turns on diplomatic immunity: Jaleel can be arrested only because his protection as a diplomat’s son ended on his 21st birthday.
- Cabot cites a New York appeals ruling extending Batson limits on jury strikes to gender when she objects to the defense’s challenges.