The Levittown woman who shot and killed her husband at Bristol Wharf in late morning hours of an early spring day in 2023 with her son by her side was sentenced Tuesday by a Bucks County judge to spend at least 10 years and up to 30 years in state prison, and her attorney says the system failed her.
Sammar Khan, 32, appeared before Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey L Findley earlier this week for a sentencing hearing.
Earlier in the summer she agreed to enter an open guilty plea to third degree murder in the very public killing of her husband Faisal Iqbal. She also pleaded guilty to possession of an instrument of crime and reckless endangerment.
During the hearing, testimony and evidence were presented asserting that Khan was a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of Iqbal, said the District Attorney’s office in a release Tuesday.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Kristin M. McElroy addressed the court on the issue. She stated that the prosecution was not contesting the existence of domestic violence in the relationship. However, McElroy argued that the alleged abuse did not justify Khan’s actions that day, authorities said.
Witnesses told detectives from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office and the Bristol Borough Police Department that Khan and Iqbal had been talking near the coastline. Witnesses reported hearing Khan speak loudly in another language, followed by a “pop” sound. Iqbal, who had been seated, stood up and wrestled with Khan as additional gunshots were heard. The two then walked toward the parking lot, where Iqbal reportedly told a witness to call 911. Witnesses observed Khan shoot Iqbal two more times, causing him to collapse. As Iqbal lay on the ground, Khan allegedly walked over to him and shot him twice more in the torso and once in the head.
Credit: Submitted anonymously
Within hours of the public killing, Lower Bucks Source readers recognized the victim’s name from Bristol Township Police press releases. Iqbal, according to the reports, violated Protection from Abuse orders in March of 2022, and April 2022. He was arrested and jailed. Both violations occurred at the suspect’s home on Freedom Lane, in Levittown. He served 26 days in Bucks County Prison on PFA violation charges.
According to court records, Iqbal violated PFA’s three different times.
According to a number of documents reviewed by Lower Bucks Source since the shooting, the marriage between the two was volatile. Khan was seeking a divorce, and custody of their children. Iqbal refused to break up the marriage.
Khan’s attorney Ellis Palividas, Esq. on Wednesday spoke to allegations of abuse, by the victim saying the system “failed” her and shed more light on the alleged abusive circumstances while the two were married.
Khan who has been confined for now for for just more than two years and four months, could possibly taste freedom again as early as May of 2033.
Khan killing Iqbal at the Wharf came about one week after the community began mourning the loss of “Baby T” who was shaken with such force by his father Tyler Sullivan that it killed him. Sullivan was sentenced last year to spend at least 15 and no more than 30 years in state prison.
“Nothing like this has ever happened in Bristol ever before. It has to be the worst week ever in the borough’s history” a resident living in the historic town for more than four decades said at the time.
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