CRIME D'HONNEUR MUSULMAN ?

D.A. to seek death penalty in

killings, burnings of family

March 03, 2010
|By LARRY WELBORN

SANTA ANA – The Orange County District Attorney's Office announced Wednesday that it will seek the death penalty against a Van Nuys man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend's father and sister and setting their bodies on fire.

Iftekhar Murtaza, 25, qualified for a potential death sentence when a judge found enough evidence at a preliminary hearing in January to require that he stand trial on two counts of first-degree murder, plus the special circumstances of committing multiple murder, murders during the commission of a burglary and kidnapping, and murders for financial gain.

He is also charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempting to murder his ex-girlfriend's mother in May 2007.

Murtaza is being held without bail and is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on Friday in the Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.

Prosecutors will seek life in prison without the possibility of parole for Murtaza's co-defendants, Vitaliy Krasnoperov, 24, of Hollywood, and Charles Anthony Murphy, Jr., 25, of Mission Hills.

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