Melb woman suffered for rejecting cousin

A Melbourne woman whose refusal to marry her cousin shamed her family and allegedly triggered a murder plot says she would have been punished with death in Afghanistan.

Wahid Najibi, 27, is accused of arranging a hitman to murder his cousin's husband, after she rejected him and fell pregnant to her new lover.

Najibi has pleaded not guilty to incitement to murder, extortion with threat to kill, kidnapping and intentionally causing injury.

The woman, known by the alias ZN, says she was promised to Najibi against her will in 2008 as part of an Afghan Islam arranged marriage.

"Nobody asked me what I wanted. I wanted to do what I wanted," she told the Victorian Supreme Court on Thursday.

But ZN said she defied her family and married another man in secret, despite suffering death threats and physical abuse from her family.

"It's not something that happens often. When it does happen in Afghanistan, they find you and they kill you," she said.

ZN said she was repeatedly threatened with death by her aunts, uncles and grandparents, with one uncle grabbing her by the throat and beating her.

"They said that they will kill me and they didn't care if they went to jail, that I should kill myself, that if I was dead they would have no problem," she said.

"His (Najibi's) mother asked for my head on a plate from my father."

ZN said she was married to Najibi in the eyes of her wider family, who now felt disgraced by her free will.

"They think if something like this happens they cannot face the (Afghan) community again, that everybody would spit on their faces," she said.

Under cross-examination from Najibi's barrister Tim Hoare, ZN said Najibi had never personally pressured her to marry him, and the pair had little to no contact.

ZN said she chose another man, known as AK, and the pair secretly signed an Islamic marriage contract in 2008. They fled to Queensland in 2010.

Prosecutor Susan Borg said AK became the target of Najibi's alleged murder plot when they returned in 2011.

Ms Borg said Najibi was so ashamed by the rejection he felt setting up an "Afghan culture hit" as retribution was his only option.

"He organised retribution to save face within his family," Ms Borg told the court earlier this week.

Ms Borg said Najibi intimidated an associate, known as JB, into carrying out the hit on AK, but police discovered and foiled the murder plot.

Najibi's trial continues.