A wanted criminal suspected of his wife’s killing, whose body was discovered in her apartment freezer in Washington state, has been extradited to the United States to face murder charges after being apprehended in the Netherlands during a volleyball tournament near Amsterdam in 2022.
Wahid Kashify is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, 24-year-old Arezu Z. Kashify, according to a news release.
“There are no limits to what we will and have not done to bring Mr. Kashify back here to stand trial for this senseless act of murder,” Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels stated.
The case was brought to light when one of the victim’s acquaintances reported her missing on May 30, 2019, after she had not been seen or heard from in days. On the same day she was reported missing, a family friend who periodically watched the couple’s children phoned Child Protective Services, informing them that he had dropped off his children shortly after midnight on May 26, 2019, according to officials.
He informed the family friend that his wife had packed her belongings and departed, that he needed to go to work and that someone needed to monitor the children, according to the release.
The next day, Wahid Kashify paid two brief visits to the children, left some childcare supplies for them, assured a family friend that he or his wife would pick them up shortly, and then vanished, according to investigators. The children were eventually placed under the care of Child Protective Services.
Authorities swiftly discovered that Wahid Kashify had boarded a trip to Dubai on May 28, 2019. Days later, law authorities located the couple’s Toyota Sienna at Spokane International Airport and recovered his smartphone. In a November 2022 news conference, authorities revealed that they discovered a video of him confessing to the crime.
On June 4, 2019, detectives searched the couple’s apartment and discovered Arezu Kashify’s body hidden behind a false bottom of a chest freezer, officials said. A warrant for Wahid Kashify’s arrest was issued a few days later, and a year-long search across three continents began.
He was discovered in October 2022, after US investigators learned that the passionate volleyball player was probably attending a volleyball competition near Amsterdam at the time. Police communicated the information to their European counterparts, who located and detained the culprit on October 29, 2022. He was leaving a locker area at the gym where the event was place, according to the news release.
He was quoted in a 2015 article in The Spokesman-Review titled “Afghan family targeted by terrorists finds refuge in Spokane.”
According to the story, the pair was in the United States as part of an immigration visa program for refugees who assisted American military or government officials. He was a translator and interpreter who served alongside US forces in Afghanistan.
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He reported riding in a Humvee convoy when it was damaged by a rocket-propelled grenade, taking Taliban fire, then blacking out.
“That was the strangest experience I’ve ever had. Kashify, a criminal justice student at Spokane Community College at the time, told the newspaper, “It was very scary.” “I see dead people all around me.” I was thinking, “Oh my gosh, am I alive?” Am I dead? “Am I in a grave?”
He was being held in the Spokane County Jail on $5 million bail, according to online booking records. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on July 30.