An Afghan asylum seeker facing life behind bars for murdering his sister over her western lifestyle cried crocodile tears for her death, a court has heard.

Accused Yousuf H., 27, is said to have sobbed uncontrollably during a prison visit to an elder brother who had been jailed for causing GBH.

A prison social worker told judges in Berlin, Germany, how she was present during the visit.

The 51-year-old unnamed Berlin-Ploetzensee Jail worker said in court: “They hugged for a long time. Yousuf just couldn’t stop crying.

“Jamal tried to comfort him. They were talking in their mother tongue so I didn’t understand a word.

“When we sat down, Yousuf regained his composure.”

Jamal H. confided in the same social worker again the following month to complain about his “ruined family” as he showed her an article about the killing.

She said: “Jamal came to me on the 9th of August last year with this article in a local newspaper.

“He was wailing and telling me that his family was destroyed now that his sister’s dead and his brothers are behind bars.

“But he also assured me that they had nothing to do with the killing.

“I approached a male colleague for support. I felt the need to deescalate the situation.”

The court heard how mother-of-two Maryam H., 33, was lured from a refuge in Berlin by her brothers Yousuf and Mahdi, 23, and then choked and hacked to death.

Her dismembered body was found in a shallow grave 340 miles (550km) miles away in southern Germany.

Grim railway station CCTV showed images of the brothers lugging a duffle bag onto a train which is said to have contained her body.

The pair showed no remorse over their sister’s death and said during police interrogations that she had dishonoured her family and that “a woman is like a servant.”

Eldest brother Jamal H. was jailed in 2020 for five years for GBH.

The prison welfare worker also told the court that he had been relocated to another ward last year after sexually assaulting a female warder.

The social worker said: “Jamal said afterwards he just couldn’t restrain himself. He argued he was missing his fiancee.”

Maryam’s cut-up body was found in the small town of Holzkirchen near Munich on the 5th August 2021.

An autopsy concluded that she had died from head and neck trauma.

The brothers were arrested shortly afterwards.

The murder trial against the two brothers continues.

A verdict is expected for October.

The two brothers – who face life sentences – refused to make any statement in court.

But they were quoted as telling investigators: “We treat women differently than you do.

“A woman is like a servant who does the housework, cooks and looks after the children.”

The victim was the mother of a 10-year-old daughter and a son aged 13.

Along with the children’s father, the family fled from Afghanistan to Germany to demand asylum in 2013.

After her marriage broke down, Maryam divorced her then-husband under German law in 2017.

However, he reportedly refused to annul the marriage under Islamic law.

According to local media, when Maryam’s brothers found out she had met someone new, they began to intrude in her life, forcing her to wear a headscarf and forbidding her from leaving her accommodation without a male escort.

Maryam’s ex-husband also threatened her with death, leading to a restraining order being taken out on him.

Investigators believe Yousuf had asked Maryam to meet him on 13th July since he had found an apartment for her and the children.

She was declared missing the same day.

Yousuf H.’s request for asylum was reportedly rejected in 2016.

He received psychiatric treatment after trying to kill himself. The attempted suicide put a halt to his deportation, according to local media.

Lawyer Roland Weber represents Maryam’s children.

Weber told judge Thomas Gross: “They keep attending school. They are doing fine considering the extremely difficult situation they are in.”