A man convicted of murdering his three sisters and another woman more than 17 years ago has been granted an escorted absence from the medium-security prison where he is serving a life sentence.

A Parole Board of Canada panel agreed Hamed Shafia should be allowed a brief visit to a minimum-security facility but rejected his request for another escorted absence to visit a mosque.

Mike Bossio, one of the panel members, told Shafia that while he has made a lot of progress and gained insight into his past behaviour, there is more work to be done and a gradual approach is needed.

Shafia and his parents were found guilty in January 2012 of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his teenage sisters and his father’s first wife in a polygamous marriage. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The bodies of Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and 52-year-old Rona Amir Mohammad were found in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ont., in June 2009.

The trial judge had described the killings as being motivated by the Shafia family’s “twisted concept of honour.”

The family had immigrated to Canada from Afghanistan and settled in Montreal, where the father was a successful businessman.

After his conviction, the younger Shafia argued that he was too young to be tried as an adult in the case, but Ontario’s top court rejected his appeal. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear the case in 2017.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2026.