The father of a woman stabbed to death in her Gordon home told a court he hadn't wanted his daughter to return home in the weeks before she was killed because she was being degraded by her husband.
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Maged Maged Mohommed Ahmed Al-Harazi, 36, is accused of murdering his wife, Sabah Al-Mdwali, 28, during an argument as she breastfed their 10-month-old son.
Her body was found with 57 stab wounds in an upstairs bedroom in 2015.
Police say Mr Al-Harazi claimed his wife's father and brother asked him to leave the Knoke Avenue house the night of March 16 and when he returned home she was dead.
Her father and brother were arrested but released without charge. Mr Al-Harazi was later charged with his wife's murder but has pleaded not guilty.
His ACT Supreme Court trial has heard the pair's relationship was turbulent and they had disagreed about where they would live; Ms Al-Mdwali wanted to stay in Australia with her family, while Mr Al-Harazi desperately wanted to return home to Yemen.
Ms Al-Mdwali's father, Mohammed Al-Mdwali, told the jury on Tuesday his daughter and the couple's three children had moved in with him and his wife after an incident where the accused had grown violent in the months before she died.
His daughter had called her parents, who arrived at the house shortly before police. Mr Al-Mdwali said the accused started saying "bad words" about his daughter and wife.
"He was screaming and saying not very nice words. I said, 'shame on you, you shouldn't say that'. He punched me on my forehead."
The court heard Mr Al-Mdwali was later approached by senior members of the Yemeni community who thought Ms Al-Mdwali should go home to the accused.
"I totally refused to return her to him," he said.
"The reason for that is he degraded her so much."
He said the elders raised the idea of a written agreement between the two men and Mr Al-Mdwali eventually agreed, later signing the document with the elders and Mr Al-Harazi.
It included conditions Mr Al-Harazi replace furniture he'd damaged in the couple's house and $5000 of gold jewellery he'd taken from his wife. It also stipulated she would return to her parent's house should any more problems arise.
Mr Al-Mdwali denied, under questioning from Crown prosecutor Shane Drumgold, he had ever asked his daughter for money, saying it was shameful for Arabs to take money from females.
"We give, but we don't take," he said.
Earlier, Ms Al-Mdwali's younger brother, who cannot be named because he is under 18, recalled coming out of the bathroom as he got ready for school to find police inside his family home the morning of March 17.
"They said, you're 'something' for the murder of Sabah and that's when I found out, when we all found out, and then they took me to the police station."
He also denied he'd ever told his sister he wanted to take money from her.
Ms Al-Mdwali's father will continue his evidence, through an Arabic interpreter, when the trial continues on Wednesday.
