An Iraqi man murdered his girlfriend with a 15-centimetre knife and apparently tried to cut her head off after she turned down his marriage proposals.

The defendant, who has been named only as Zyad S., 25, was on trial over the death of his girlfriend Fatemah B., 28, who he murdered with a meat knife on 16th February 2019.

He was being retried after an initial 12-year sentence for manslaughter was deemed too lenient by prosecutors. He has now been jailed for life, with the possibility of parole in 15 years.

For Judge Gesine Brunkow, a deep cut found on the woman’s neck “suggests the impression of attempted decapitation”.

The defendant grabbed the knife before luring the Iranian woman into his car and driving to a dirt road where he then murdered her.

The judge said to the defendant: “You thought, ‘if I am not allowed to have her, then nobody is allowed to have her’.”

At Fatemah’s funeral, Pastor Gruben spoke about the fun-loving young Iranian woman, who arrived in Germany three years ago without her family and who was studying German with only one thought in mind: to find a job and to work, according to German daily Bild.

The pastor said: “Your friends here were like family to you.”

At the beginning of the trial, the prosecutors requested life imprisonment for murder, while the defence pleaded manslaughter and requested an eight-year prison sentence.

The Luebeck Regional Court decided to convict the accused of manslaughter instead of murder. In the opinion of the court, the accused acted deliberately, but not insidiously.