Just a teen age girl, she fell in love with a British soldier in Basra. She met him at the charity for displaced families where she volunteered. Since she was learning English, she could talk with him without others knowing what they were saying. She never did more than talk to him four times, all in public.
When her father learned she had been speaking to the soldier at the charity project, he killed her.
Abdel-Qader Ali stood on the girl's throat until she suffocated and then stabbed her, all the time shouting that his honour was being cleansed.
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Because her family considered her impure, Rand was given only a simple burial. Her uncles spat in her grave to show their disgust.
Two weeks later her mother demanded a divorce from Ali, and she now campaigns against honour killings.
She lives in fear of reprisals. "I was beaten and had my arm broken by him," she said. "No man can accept being left by a woman in Iraq."
Rand's friend Zeinab said: "Rand was just a young girl with romantic dreams. She always kept her religion close to her heart. She would never even hurt a petal on a rose."