A Georgia man facing charges that he killed his daughter for disgracing his family declared his innocence.
"I have done nothing wrong," Chaudhry Rashid told Chief Magistrate Daphne Walker at his Tuesday hearing through interpreter Younis Farhat, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Rashid, 54, who speaks primarily Urdu and Punjabi, has been charged with murder in connection with the death of his 25-year-old daughter Sandeela Kanwal. She was found strangled to death with a bungee cord Sunday in the family's Jonesboro, Ga., home.
Kanwal wed in Pakistan in an arranged marriage. Police said she hadn't seen her husband, who lives in Chicago, for months.
"I don't know anything about an arranged marriage," Tammi Long, Rashid's lawyer, told the Journal-Constitution. "I am not positive that is a factor in this case."
According to police, there was "friction between father and victim" in the weeks leading up to the killing. Rashid had not spoken to his daughter in more than two months.
Police said Rashid was so angered that his daughter planned to divorce her husband that he killed her after a heated argument at the family's home, FOX News affiliate MyFOXAtlanta reported.
During Tuesday's hearing, Rashid told the judge he wanted to observe his Muslim beliefs while in jail, including a diet that forbids the consumption of pork, the paper said.
Rashid is being held without bond at the Clayton County Jail, the paper said. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 4.
Click here to read more at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Click here to read more from FOX affiliate MyFOXAtlanta.com.
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