Advertisement

Cultural Defense in Wife’s Death : Courts: Attorney says Iranian immigrant snapped because his spouse challenged his manhood. But prosecution portrays him as a calculated killer.

Share
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Trapped by his culture in a dysfunctional marriage and psychologically abused for decades, Iranian immigrant Moosa Hanoukai snapped and killed his wife in a crime of passion, his defense attorney said Thursday.

But at the opening of Hanoukai’s trial in Van Nuys Superior Court, prosecutors portrayed him as a calculating killer who deserves life in prison.

At stake is whether Hanoukai, 55, spends the rest of life behind bars or is guilty of manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 11 years in prison.

Advertisement

Defense attorney James E. Blatt said he will use a cultural defense and show that Hanoukai’s wife challenged her husband’s manhood for 25 years.

Browbeaten by his wife, forced to sleep on the floor and prevented from getting a divorce, Hanoukai erupted at his Woodland Hills home March 20, 1993, Blatt said.

“The defense considers this case a tragedy of a married couple involved in a dysfunctional relationship,” Blatt said. “Due to cultural and religious grounds, they were unable to get a divorce.” The relationship, he added, “finally ended in a night of tragic violence.”

Although he apparently tried to cover up the slaying, Hanoukai soon confessed to an acquaintance that he bludgeoned his wife, Manijeh, prosecutors said.

Blatt said he plans to present evidence showing that Manijeh Hanoukai violated norms of the tightly knit Iranian Jewish community of which she and her husband were members, and will show the psychological abuse Hanoukai endured.

“The defense is confident that we can present our witnesses and this homicide will be shown to be a manslaughter--that it was in the heat of passion, that it was not premeditated or with malice,” Blatt said.

Advertisement

In her opening statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen M. Cady painted a picture of a man who went out of control after a domestic dispute.

“Her injuries were many skull fractures,” Cady said, describing the beating the victim received. “She died because her body lost so much blood.”

An autopsy determined that Manijeh Hanoukai died of blunt-force trauma to the head, but no murder weapon was found, authorities said.

The prosecutor promised the jurors that they would hear testimony indicating that after beating his 100-pound wife to death, Hanoukai completely dressed the corpse, stuffed it in a trash bag and left it in the garage of their Margarita Drive home.

While admitting the couple had a stormy relationship, Cady said Hanoukai would not turn himself in to police until he had consulted an Iranian attorney.

The couple’s 25-year-old daughter, Delaram, testified that her parents were unhappy throughout their relationship, and that her mother controlled the family’s finances.

Advertisement

Police have said that Manijeh Hanoukai controlled several bank accounts--totaling well over $200,000--and her daughter was named as the beneficiary of the bank deposits and a life insurance policy.

Delaram Hanoukai told the jury about one fight between her parents in the family’s Huntington Park clothing store, where Moosa Hanoukai shook his wife and threatened “to smash her head.”

Advertisement