Man Who Killed Wife Was Abused, Defense Argues

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 prosecutors portrayed Hanoukai, whose trial for murder opened in Van Nuys Superior Court, as a calculating killer who deserves life in prison.

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

Defense attorney James E. Blatt said he will use a “cultural defense” and show the victim continually challenged Hanoukai’s manhood for 25 years.

Browbeaten by his wife, forced to sleep on the floor and prevented from getting a divorce, Hanoukai erupted on Persian New Year’s Eve last year at their Woodland Hills home, Blatt said.

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

While he apparently tried to cover up the March 20, 1993, slaying, Hanoukai soon after confessed to an acquaintance that he bludgeoned his wife, Manijeh, according to testimony.

Blatt said he plans to present evidence showing how Manijeh Hanoukai violated norms of the tightly knit Iranian-Jewish community of which they 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,” Blatt said, “that it was in the heat of passion, that it was not premeditated or with malice.”

In her opening statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen M. Cady avoided all references to culture and 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.”

Manijeh Hanoukai died from blunt force trauma to the head, but no murder weapon was ever found, suggesting her husband killed her with his bare hands.

The prosecutor promised the jury of six men and six woman 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 the remains in the garage of their Margarita Drive home.

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

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

While her father had to ask for money, Delaram Hanoukai did not see the practice as degrading her father.

“I did not see it in a way that he was asking permission for money,” she testified. “It (the money) was ours, it was not seen as hers . . . that was my point of view.”

Police have said that Manijeh Hanoukai had control over several bank accounts--with deposits totaling well over $200,000--and her daughter was named as the beneficiary of the bank deposits and her 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.”

“It was not the first time hearing it from my father,” she testified.