Murdered Lawyer Only The Latest Bizarre Twist In Bizarre Divorce Case
Arranged marriages, bigamy, gangland threats, overseas assassinations… this divorce has a lot of moving parts.
When the headline “A Lawyer’s Murder Makes a Weird Houston Divorce Case a Lot Weirder” comes across the desk, it’s worth digging a little deeper. The Houston Press brings us the long and winding tale of real estate magnate Mohammad Ali Choudhri and his arranged marriage to and impending divorce from Hira Azhar and how this all relates to the assassination of attorney Fahad Malik in Islamabad this week.
In a nutshell, Choudhri married Azhar in an arranged marriage when he was 28 and she was 18. Four years later she announced her intention to divorce him. Choudhri filed for divorce in Pakistan, Azhar filed in Texas, and the courts are trying to decide which third-world country will have jurisdiction.
Choudhri now claims that Azhar was already married to another man before him and that Malik was set to testify to that fact because he’d represented the alleged first husband before. The first husband had, himself, well…
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As [Choudhri’s attorney Doug] York notes in the motion, “it was reported that Hira Azhar’s uncle had gang type ties and was capable of carrying out deadly threats.” Exactly who “reported” this is unclear, as is much of the emergency motion, which is thoroughly unencumbered by supporting evidence for these threats, and contains passages like this:
“The first husband’s attorney reported that it was getting extremely ‘hot’ for his client, that the intimidation of death was accompanied with a bribe request of $300,000 for either stating that he was never married to Hira Azhar, or…’disappear’ and never testify against Hira Azhar.”
That’s some shrewd planning by these “gang-type” men — they threaten to kill a dude while simultaneously offering him a boat-load of cash. That’s what’s known, in gang-type parlance, as covering your bases. But we digress.
Yes, that’s not particularly savvy ganging. Was Ryan Lochte plotting this shakedown?
Oh, and if you think the Malik shooting wasn’t weird enough:
Pakistini news reports of Malik’s murder are light on details. Ary News reported that Malik and an associate were shot as they left a police station, shortly after Malik tried to mediate a skirmish between the associate and a rival group. The skirmish was allegedly “over a girl.” (According to Propakistani, the skirmish started over a comment posted on Facebook.)
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I’m trying to imagine mediating a skirmish between a younger associate and a rival group on the courthouse steps. I’m pretty sure I’d have turned to the kid and said, “well, I’m taking this cab, see you back at the office!”
In any event, another lawyer for Choudhri says the whole Malik murder, detailed in an emergency motion to Judge David Farr, is not meant to implicate Azhar in Malik’s murder (though that seems to be written between the lines), but to underline the danger of Azhar’s effort to make Houston lawyers take depositions in Pakistan. Except, it was Choudhri who filed in Pakistan in the first place, and now it’s his lawyers complaining about it? What the hell is going on here?
The whole story is worth a read if you want to follow 19 strands of messed up.
A Lawyer’s Murder Makes a Weird Houston Divorce Case a Lot Weirder [Houston Press]
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Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
