A New York woman allegedly tried to slit her husband's throat because she said he wasn't the devout Muslim she thought she married five months ago, the Staten Island Advance reported.
Rabia Sarwar told authorities in a four-page written confession that she tried her "best to cut his throat," but that her husband, Sheikh Naseem, woke up and took the knife from her.
The 37-year-old's attorney told the Advance that Naseem, a high school teacher who is half Pakistani, "was a cruel person, he preyed on her."
"He literally threatened to have her parents mutilated," Joseph Licitra told the newspaper.
Unnamed sources told the Advance Naseem pressured Sarwar, a Pakistani, to do things that were against her religious beliefs.
"He made her do stuff that she didn't like to do — eating pork, drinking alcohol, wearing short clothes. She did all of that to make him happy," the source said.
Sarwar slashed Naseem's neck with a kitchen knife as he slept, according to a statement she gave to police.
She pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and was freed on $25,000 bail.
She told police in a written statement that she was emotionally abused by Naseem and forced to violate her religious beliefs.
"He made me do so many things that are against Islam," she wrote in a statement to police. "I did all that just to make him happy but inside me there was a war."
Naseem suffered cuts to his neck, cheek and hand early Wednesday before fighting Sarwar off and dialing police from his home in the New York City borough of Staten Island, authorities said.
"I did my best to cut his throat," Rabia Sarwar wrote. "But the next moment he jumped on me and grabbed me."
Sarwar's attorney, Joe Licitra, said she had previously been treated for depression. Her husband told the New York Post that Sarwar was having a hard time adjusting to American culture.
"There was no gun pointed to her head to do these things," Licitra told the Post.
Sarwar's statement to police paints a picture of a frustrated, confused woman angry that her husband of five months was not what he appeared to be during their brief courtship.
After they were married, she discovered he had previously dated mostly "white" women, had been married before and liked to go out to drink, she wrote.
He was not religious, though he claimed to be a devout Muslim, and he often yelled and cursed her family, she said. And one of his favorite writers was Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," which caused violent protests by Muslims in several countries because the book was perceived as an irreverent depiction of the prophet Mohammed.
"He hates Pakistan and he hates Pakistanis then why did he marry a Pakistani girl?" she wrote.
They fought about her leaving, and he threatened to hurt her family, saying they would have to pay him $30,000 or he would sue them and leave them penniless and homeless, she wrote. Her family is in Pakistan.
She lay in bed that evening thinking her only way out was to kill him, she wrote.
Police said they had never visited the house on any domestic dispute calls, they said.
Sarwar also pleaded not guilty Thursday to second-degree assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Her next court date is Monday.
Click here to read more on this story from the Staten Island Advance.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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