Two men who came to Canada from Iraq have been given a conditional discharge for beating a man and a woman for having a secret two-and-half year relationship and not being married.
A Calgary court heard that Brothers Fadi Nabeel Anwer Bootano and Anwer Bootano started beating their niece Ms. Kubi and Mohammed Al Husainawi.
Justice Stevenson said the attack was a “prolonged group assault,” was a crime of “dominance” done against a female relative and “the issue of dominance visited upon a female relative has to be denounced strongly in Canada.”
“The reason for keeping the relationship secret, as expressed by both victims, was that her family would not have approved of it,” said Justice B. C. Stevenson on May 3.
“The reason for keeping the relationship secret, as expressed by both victims, was that her family would not have approved of it, on the basis that she is a Christian, and he is a Muslim.
Kubi told police that the two brothers started hitting them, kicked them, slapped Husainawi seven to 10 times, assaulted her, slapping her, kicking he in the stomach and face, pushed her, and kicked her in the back of her thighs.
Husainawi testified the same about the confinement and assaults.
Kubi tried recanting her statement at court and Justice Stevenson said “Ms. Kubi was under considerable pressure from her family to deny the charges laid against her uncles, and to treat the incident as a ‘family matter.’
“In her sworn and inconsistent testimony at trial, it appeared to me that Ms. Kubi had made a choice, perhaps involuntarily, between committing perjury and protecting family solidarity,” said Justice Stevenson.
“I found that I could not accept her sworn testimony as being truthful except where it was consistent with the sworn testimony of the male victim Husainawi. I also found that her earlier statement given to the police was admissible and its contents to be necessary and reliable and credible.”
Court heard that the two accused brothers have Permanent Resident status in Canada. They act as “parents and guardians” of Ms. Kubi who is the daughter of their murdered brother.
Defence lawyers had urged the court for a conditional discharge pointing out the two brothers’ experience in the Iraqi civil war and the following USA-led invasion of Iraq.
Justice Stevenson gave the brothers a conditional discharge and ordered them to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for twoyears.
Fadi Bootano was also ordered to provide his DNA to the National DNA Data Bank and he was prohibited from owing weapons for 10 years.
