AFFAIR ENDS BADLY!

Mother of children dead in Calgary
fire angrily blames husband's ex-mistress
JUDY MONCHUK
November 1, 2005 - 17:06

CALGARY (CP) - The mother of two children who
were killed when their home was firebombed angrily
denied Tuesday that she threatened the woman
who had been having an affair with her husband.
Salima Barih made it clear she blames her husband's
one-time mistress, Manar Hussein, for destroying
her family. Hussein is on trial for arson and
manslaughter.
"I want you to remember who killed who. She
killed my children," Barih shot back at Hussein's
lawyer, Rupert Joshi, under cross-examination
during the second day of the trial.
"I didn't threaten her; she threatened me," said
Barih as she looked at Hussein with disdain.
"She destroyed my life. She stuck her nose in
my life. She made a relationship with my
husband. She knew he was a married man with
two children. Is that fair? Would she accept if I
made a relationship with her husband?"
Barih noted Hussein had a reputation within
Calgary's Iraqi community for becoming
involved with other women's husbands.
"She's famous for that," said the 30-year-old
immigrant. "Most of her relationships are with
married men."
Barih's testimony was in sharp contrast to a
day earlier when she was often overwhelmed
by emotion. Dressed in black except for a
black-olive hejab (scarf), she left an
impression Tuesday of composure.
Hussein and her common-law husband,
Abdulaziz Ellahib, were charged after a Molotov
cocktail was thrown into the living room of the
Iraqi family's Calgary townhouse on
Nov. 18, 2004, setting off an inferno and
separating Barih from her children.
It's alleged that Ellahib arranged for the attack
and Hussein paid for it.
The bodies of five-year-old Ali and his four-year-old
sister Saja were burned beyond recognition.
Two men, strangers to Barih and her husband,
have been convicted of setting fire to the home
for $120 - money spent on crack cocaine.
Barih confronted Hussein on several occasions
about the affair and at one point was under a court
order to stay away from the woman. But she told
court that Hussein kept taunting her, even
parking outside the family home and laying
on the horn.
Court heard that Hussein began pursuing
Barih's husband, Tashin Al-Mayahi, after
getting his cellphone number off a sign when
the couple briefly had a car for sale in 2003.
Soon after, he became distant, argumentative
and complained his money was all gone.
Al-Mayahi testified briefly through an interpreter
that Hussein began calling him two or three times
a week on his cellphone and would often ask
about his relationship with his wife,
focusing on anything that was negative.
"She was trying to complain about her
life," said Al-Mayahi.


INFIDELITY CAUSES MANY SERIOUS
PROBLEMS, IS RISKING YOUR MARRIAGE
AND CHILDREN WORTH IT?
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