My husband was the last to see Shafilea Ahmed alive, says her mother Mrs Ahmed has always denied murder, but earlier this month the jury of seven men and five women were told she had changed her account. She said she witnessed her husband beat Shafilea on the night of the alleged murder. She also claimed he had threatened to do the same to her and their other children if she asked him about Shafilea. It was not until last year that Shafilea's sister, Alesha, provided the "final piece of the puzzle," the prosecution said, when she disclosed that she witnessed her parents killing Shafilea at the family home. Mrs Ahmed told the jury about her origins in Pakistan, her arranged marriage to Iftikhar, her first cousin, and her arrival in Britain at the age of 22. Mrs Ahmed recalled Shafilea going missing from home in the January before the alleged murder. She knew her daughter had spent the time with a boy, but only learnt his name at Shafilea's inquest. Prior to that, Mrs Ahmed had known of only one incident involving a boy, when in October or November 2002 Shafilea had gone missing for only a couple of days. On that occasion Mr Ahmed had slapped their daughter twice shortly after bringing her home. Mrs Ahmed denied knowledge of a plan to have her daughter go through with an arranged marriage and rejected prosecution claims that she prepared a drugged drink for Shafilea so the Ahmeds could get her on board a flight to Pakistan in February 2003. Mrs Ahmed's second-eldest child, Alesha, has told the court the drink was prepared by her mother and uncle. The mother-of-five said: "There was no drink. I don't know anything about it. Mr and Mrs Ahmed deny murder.