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An angry mum who branded her daughter’s death at the hans of her Muslim husband an ‘honour killing’ has apologised for going to war with Islam.
Mohamed Naddaf had pleaded guilty to the criminally negligent manslaughter of Ashlee Brown, 25, who died in their ‘unkempt and dirty’ Craigieburn home in Melbourne‘s north in November 2016.
Ashlee’s mum Siobhann Brown had draped herself in an Australian flag outside Naddaf’s Supreme Court of Victoria hearings in 2018 and was supported by anti-Islam protesters throughout his 2020 appeal.
Siobhann Brown waves the Australian flag as she attends court in 2018. Her daughter had been killed by her husband Mohamed Naddaf
But after seven years of blaming Islam for her daughter’s death, Ms Brown has now apologised to the Islamic community for stirring up hate against its believers.
‘I wanted revenge. I wanted Islam to suffer. I spoke out publicly against Islam. Seven years later I now understand I was wrong to do that,’ Ms Brown posted to social media.
Few could have blamed Ms Brown for her feelings of rage following the brutal death of her daughter.
The mother of three children aged under five had been bashed, stabbed, gagged and had her long strawberry blonde hair cut off by Naddaf.
The court had heard Naddaf had helped Ashlee to the bathroom, putting her down on a flannelette sheet on the floor, and fed her water through a syringe for five days.
He finally called triple zero on November 6 after Ashlee died from complications arising from more than 100 injuries including internal and external bleeding.
In 2020, Naddaf lost an appeal over his sentence, condemning him to serve his full non-parole period of eight years in jail.
Ms Brown had attended the Supreme Court of Victoria that day alongside her surviving daughter Dakota-Lee and anti-Islam protesters.
‘We do not have to accept these things but we must continue to raise awareness and educate as many as we can on this sadly rapidly growing horror we have come to know as domestic violence,’ she said then.
‘In Ashlee’s case it was Islam.’
Ashlee Brown suffered more than 100 blunt and sharp force injuries. The mother of three children under five had been bound, gagged and had her long strawberry blonde hair cut off
Mohamed Naddaf is escorted from a prison van to the Victorian Supreme Court ahead of his sentencing in January over the manslaughter of his 25-year-old wife Ashlee Brown in 2016
Siobhann Brown and her daughter Dakota-Lee celebrate on the doors of the Supreme Court of Victoria after Naddaf’s appeal failed
Justice John Champion said Ashlee was found in the passenger seat of the couple’s car after having been subjected to a ‘deliberate and frenzied assault’ and tied up with clothesline wire.
During Naddaf’s doomed appeal, his barrister Jason Gullaci argued Justice Champion had got it wrong and asked the court to reduce Naddaf’s sentence.
He reminded the court that Naddaf had not been convicted of causing the injuries to his wife, but had failed to get her assistance.
Supporters of Ms Brown who packed the court room scoffed at the suggestion.
‘Rubbish,’ one man muttered. ‘It should be murder not bloody manslaughter.’
Outside court, supporters held placards demanding ‘Justice For Ashlee’ and branded her death an honour killing.
This month, Ms Brown told her followers she was wrong to blame Islam for her daughter’s death.
‘One man killed my daughter and I will never forgive him for that. However I must apologise to the Islamic community in Australia. I am truly sorry. I know I can’t take back what I said. However I can only apologise,’ she posted to Facebook this month.
The qualified security guard said she had never discriminated against Muslims in her day-to-day life, but regretted her previous attacks on their faith.
‘I am sincerely sorry about speaking out against your religion,’ she wrote.
‘I am not a hypocrite. I am just me and six years ago I wanted blood. I believe speaking out and starting a hate campaign was my way of grieving and getting through my daughter’s death and for that I am truly sorry.’
Ms Brown said she was now focused on finding peace in her life and ‘coming full circle’.
‘I need to do this so I can let go of misplaced anger. I do hope some members of the Islamic faith reach out to me as I would like to mend that bridge,’ she stated.
Siobhann Brown, whose daughter Ashlee was found dead in the home she shared with her husband Mohamed Naddaf, went to war with Islam
Ashlee Brown and Mohamed Naddaf (both pictured) lived together in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. Ashlee was 25 when she was found dead on the bathroom floor of the couple’s home
Ms Brown told reporters in 2020 she believed Naddaf should have faced a murder trial for the death of her daughter, who had converted to Islam and had not spoken to her for five years.
‘I am here today to raise awareness to the horrific, torturous death that Ashlee endured,’ Ms Brown said at the time.
‘My daughter’s injuries and circumstances surrounding her death had all the hallmarks of an Islamic honour killing.’
Ms Brown told Daily Mail Australia she had not heard from her eldest daughter since a phone call five years before she died.
Her daughter told her she was marrying a Muslim man and was three months pregnant with her first child.
Ms Brown had met Naddaf when Ashlee visited the family’s home in country Victoria when she was about 18.
‘She introduced him as ‘Macca’,’ Ms Brown said. ‘It was very brief.
‘He seemed like a nice, very polite, young man. It pains me to say that. I didn’t see him again after that.’
There was no communication for some time before a phone call came ‘out of the blue’ that would mean the end of all contact between Ms Brown and her daughter.
Siobhann Brown and her supporters smiled at they left the Supreme Court in Melbourne in 2020 after learning Mohamed Naddaf would have to serve his minimum non-parole term
Ashlee was a fun-loving girl,’ Siobhann Brown told Daily Mail Australia. ‘She was giving. She was loving. She loved the sun, the beach. She loved singing, dancing, having fun’
When Ashlee was about 20 she rang to say she was pregnant and wanted her mother’s blessing to convert to Islam and marry Naddaf.
‘She said to me, ‘Mum, I need your blessing to become Muslim’. She said ‘I’m three months’ pregnant and I’m engaged to Mohamed. I would really like to marry him, mum, and settle down and have a baby’.
‘I said to her, ‘Darling, I don’t know anything about the Muslim religion. As long as you know what you’re doing’.
‘I said, ‘Do you have to wear one of those burqas or hijabs?’ I didn’t know what they were called.
‘She said, ‘No mum, only when I go into the mosque because it’s disrespectful for a woman to show her face before God’.
‘I said to Ashlee, ‘As long as you’re making a fully informed decision and it’s what you really want’.’
Ashlee said that it was.
‘There was a pause after that,’ Ms Brown said. ‘She said. ‘Thank you, mum’. And then her voice seemed to change and she said, ‘It’s Islam’. That didn’t mean anything to me at the time.
‘We said goodbye to each other and we hung up and I didn’t hear from Ashlee again.’
Ms Brown said she was convinced the lack of subsequent contact with Ashlee was solely down to her religious conversion and Naddaf controlling his wife.
‘I believe Islam killed my daughter,’ she said.
‘If I could have taken that phone call back I would have not have given her my blessing. I would have said ‘No, sorry love’.
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