Baby-stabber refuses to grant wife sharia divorce
Baby-stabber refuses to grant wife sharia divorce
Baby-stabber refuses to grant wife sharia divorce
Blames attack on his drug abuse. She wants to return to Lebanon but fears she could face arrest for child abduction
Published: Tuesday, January 23, 2007
A man who stabbed his wife seven times, then knifed their infant daughter, told a Quebec Court hearing yesterday he regretted the assaults and blamed his actions on a drug problem.
The man, whose name cannot be published to protect his child's identity, attacked his wife last February in their Snowdon apartment before stabbing the 15-month-old girl in the stomach.
The man pleaded guilty in December to two counts of aggravated assault, rather than stand trial for attempted murder.
The couple are Muslim. His wife wants to return with her daughter to her family in her native Lebanon, but is reluctant to do so unless her husband grants her a sharia divorce, conducted by an imam.
The man testified yesterday he has no intention of granting his wife a divorce in Canada under sharia law.
"The issue of the divorce will be decided over there," he told Judge Martin Vauclair.
Without such a divorce, the woman says, she fears she could be forced to live with her husband in Lebanon when he returns, or be arrested for abducting her daughter if she takes the girls there without her spouse.
The man also told the prosecutor he didn't think he needed treatment for violent behaviour, saying he is normally a peaceful person.
When his wife testified this month, she said her husband had been acting strangely before the attacks. Two days before the incident, he burned his wrists, saying he "wanted to get rid of the devil." A day later, the man showed up at the airport in his pyjamas, carrying only his passport, saying he wanted to go visit his mother.
On the day of the attack, the man was working on the computer in the couple's apartment while his wife fed their daughter.
He went to the bathroom and emerged with a knife. He pushed his wife on to the couch, then stabbed her in the face, arm, shoulder and thigh. He then went into the bedroom and stabbed the baby in the stomach.
The child spent 10 days at Ste. Justine Hospital.
Prosecutor Sophie Lavergne told the judge the accused has exhibited little remorse since the attacks. She asked he be sentenced to seven years in prison, and called it a miracle that both the woman and the girl survived.
The man's lawyer, Hanan Mrani, suggested a three-year term followed by a six-month stay at a drug rehabilitation centre.