A father who drugged and strangled his daughter to death told police in Iraq he had killed her to “wash away the shame”.

Victim Taiba Alali had fled her homeland in 2017 to start a new life in Turkey and had planned to wed her Syrian-born boyfriend.

But when she returned to Iraq to support her country’s football team in the Arabian Gulf Cup in January, her family kidnapped her.

Local media reported that influencer Taiba had agreed to meet her mother at a friend’s house in Baghdad and was astonished when the whole family turned up.

Taiba is said to have been drugged and taken back to the family home in Al-Qadisiyyah Governorate.

When she came to, says local media, she rowed furiously with her father.

But as she later slept, he came into her room and throttled her to death.

Her father – unnamed in local media – turned himself in to police, telling them he had killed his own daughter to “wash away the shame”.

Police are now investigating him for murder but Iran’s penal code means he could escape jail by declaring the death an ‘honour killing’.

Under the code, judges are allowed to impose lenient sentences on people who kill for ‘honourable motives’ or under provocation.

A March 2021 Home Office report on the code says: “Article 409 of the Iraqi Penal Code permits ‘honour’ as a mitigation for crimes of violence committed against family members and the Code allows for lenient punishments for ‘honour killings’ on the grounds of provocation or if the accused had ‘honourable motives’.

“The law does not provide guidance as to what ‘honourable motives’ are and, therefore, leaves scope for wide interpretation.”