Rob Tripp's Blog: Cancrime, page 13

Ottawa honour killer loses appeal with parallels to Shafia

In an unequivocal, unanimous decision, three judges of Ontario’s top court dismissed an appeal by a convicted honour killer, a decision that could have implications for appeals in the infamous Shafia mass honour killing case. The Court of Appeal for Ontario refused to overturn the conviction of Hasibullah Sadiqi (inset), who shot to death his sister and her fiance in Ottawa, Ontario in 2006. Sadiqi is serving life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years after he was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder. He acknowledged that he pulled the trigger and had intended to kill both victims, but he claimed that the murders were not planned but were the result of provocation. The prosecution established that Sadiqi, like the Shafias, carried out the murders because he believed his Afghan family’s honour had been tarnished and he believed the slayings would cleanse the shame. In its decision, the Court of Appeal concluded that the Sadiqi case was built on a “strong web of circumstantial evidence,” it relied on “straightforward and powerful logic” presented by a Crown prosecutor and the testimony of an expert on honour killings was “necessary,” “relevant,” and “balanced.”

Victims Feroz Mangal (left) and Khatera Sadiqi

During Sadiqi’s trial, witnesses testified that he was angry that his sister, Khatera, 20, planned to marry Feroz Mangal, 23, and had moved in with Mangal’s family, without consulting her father, from whom she was estranged. The Sadiqi and Mangal families immigrated to Canada from Afghanistan. Sadiqi believed his sister’s actions had shamed the family, the trial was told. An expert witness called by prosecutors, University of Toronto professor Shahrzad Mojab, testified that in some conservative cultures, the perception that a woman or girl is defiant or disobedient is considered by some families to be a grave dishonour to its reputation in the wider community and could prompt the family to kill her.

“Purifying through the spilling of blood shows men are in control,” Mojab testified at the 2009 trial. “Restoring the respect of the family is more important than the sacrificing of the life of a woman who is disobeying.”

Khatera and Mangal were shot to death on September 19, 2006, while they sat in Khatera’s car in a parking lot in Ottawa. Earlier that evening, they had been out to dinner and a movie with a group of people, including Khatera’s brother Hasibullah. Khatera and Mangal drove Hasibullah to his car in the parking lot at the end of the evening but before they could drive away, Hasibullah pulled a .44-calibre handgun from under the seat of his car, walked back to Khatera’s car and shot the pair. Hasibullah claimed that he “exploded” in a rage after incendiary comments by Mangal related to disagreement over Khatera’s insistence that she would marry who she chose, without consulting her father. Hasibullah claimed that Mangal said:

Fuck you, fuck your father, fuck your sister. I’ll bring your sister’s dead body to the wedding before I ever let her talk to your father. Fuck you.

Hasibullah said that he had no recollection of what happened next, until he found himself driving away from the scene of the shooting. He acknowledged that he had argued with his sister that night.

A central component of Sadiqi’s appeal was his complaint that the trial judge should not have permitted Mojab, the honour killing expert, to testify. But the Court of Appeal concluded that there was nothing prejudicial in her testimony and that she was an “appropriate” witness who gave “balanced” evidence. The appeal court decision noted that Mojab acknowledged she did not have any information about the case.

Like the trial judge, we think it important in assessing the potential prejudicial effect that the expert offered no opinion on the facts of the case. There was no danger that the jury would cede its fact finding responsibilities to the expert.

Mojab (inset right) also appeared as an expert witness at the Shafia murder trial that concluded in Kingston, Ontario in January 2012. As in Sadiqi, Mojab did not testify about the specific facts of the Shafia case and she was not asked if she thought the case appeared to be an honour killing. She testified only about the concept of honour codes and the behaviour seen in some strict, traditional families. Mohammad Shafia, 59, his second wife Tooba Yahya, 43, and their son Hamed, 22, were each convicted of four counts of first-degree murder. Sisters Zainab Shafia, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir, 50, were found dead on June 30, 2009, inside a submerged car. Prosecutors established that Shafia was enraged by what he considered defiant behaviour of his daughters, who he believed had dishonoured him because they were consorting with boys and dressing in clothes that he considered revealing. Rona, who was his first wife in the polygamous family, had asked for a divorce and sided with the girls.

Like Sadiqi, the Shafias are claiming in their appeals that Mojab’s evidence was prejudicial and she should not have been permitted to testify at the trial. The Shafias have not yet filed their detailed appeal documents, but the brief notice of appeal already submitted to the Court of Appeal on behalf of Hamed complains that Mojab’s knowledge of honour killing was mainly anecdotal and her evidence was not objective. The Shafia trial judge conducted a lengthy hearing on the debate over whether Mojab should be allowed to testify, and issued a written ruling explaining his decision.

The Shafias are expected to file one joint factum that will set out detailed grounds of appeal on behalf of all three convicted killers. The notice of appeal already filed by defence lawyer Patrick McCann also alleges that the trial was “unfair” because Tooba Yahya, who testified in her own defence, was subject to “abusive” questioning by a Crown prosecutor. The notice also complains that the trial judge should not have admitted evidence concerning statements made by the victims to teachers, social workers, family members and police officers. A date for a hearing will be set after the defence files its factum.

Here’s the complete decision by the Court of Appeal for Ontario in the Sadiqi case:

Hasibullah Sadiqi appeal denied by Ontario Court of Appeal by Rob

» All of my coverage of the Shafia trial

» Details on my next public appearance, at a panel discussion on honour-based violence, in Montreal May 2, 2013

Court refuses to block cash award to cop killer Peter Collins

An imprisoned cop killer will get the $9,500 he was awarded by a human rights tribunal, after he complained that he was being forced to stand up in prison during head counts, an act that he said was difficult and painful because of chronic and severe back pain he suffers. A new decision by the Federal Court of Appeal blocks an attempt by Ottawa to stop the payout to Peter Collins (inset), who murdered an Ottawa policeman in 1983. Collins was awarded the money by the Canadian Human Rights Commission after a hearing into his complaints about how he was being treated in prison.

In a decision in 2010, the Canadian Human Rights Commission ordered Corrections Canada to pay Collins $9,500 for pain and suffering and special compensation. The government appealed and in 2011 a federal court judge permitted Ottawa’s request for a judicial review of the human rights decision. Collins appealed that decision, and this week, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the 2011 decision, ruling that “there was no basis justifying the judge’s intervention.” In 1983, Collins, then 22, had escaped from a detention centre in the Ottawa area, shot and killed 38-year-old police constable David Utman (inset right) at a shopping mall. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. He was smug and defiant at his sentencing in 1984, according to a report in the Ottawa Citizen. According to the newspaper’s account of the hearing, Collins refused to stand when he was being sentenced and told the judge: “I don’t want to.”

The murder of Constable Utman was cold-blooded, according to this account by the Ottawa Citizen, published in 2010 and based on the recollections of retired Nepean police chief Gus Wersch.

As Utman sat in the Gourmet Fair coffee shop at around noon, his back to a wall, Peter Michael Collins, 22, shot at the officer’s head. The bullet missed and Utman, drawing his nightstick, walked out of the café and into the hall to keep members of the public out of the line of fire. “One could easily call it an act of heroism,” Wersch said at the time. Witnesses said Utman tried to talk Collins into giving him the gun, coming within two metres of him. “I guess I’ll have to kill you,” Collins said. He shot Utman in the chest. Utman died 90 minutes later.

In 2012, Collins was denied parole. He is British and is set to be deported to England if he is released from prison in Canada.

Cops across country join forces to catch “Vaulter” bank bandit

Many surveillance images are fuzzy, dark or lacking detail, but not these. Police have a trove of high-quality video and still images of a bandit who has been terrorizing banks across Canada. The images, including video of some of the holdups, have been compiled (see it after the jump) and released by police. The robber has been dubbed the “Vaulter” (inset) because he leaps over bank counters during the robberies (like infamous bandit Edwin Alonzo Boyd). A Canada-wide warrant has been issued and a reward of $20,000 offered for information leading to his arrest. It’s hard to imagine that another low-life won’t soon turn him in, in order to get that cash.

Can’t see the video? Try this link.

Have info about the Vaulter? Contact the York Regional Police Hold-Up Unit at 1-866-876-5423, ext. 6630, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-tips, leave an anonymous tip online at www.1800222tips.com or text your tip to CRIMES (274637) starting with the word YORK, or call your local police.

Ex-NHLer and killer drunk driver Ramage gets parole break

Ten years after ex-NHLer Rob Ramage (inset) killed one person and seriously injured another while driving drunk, he has his Ontario driver’s licence back and has been given the go-ahead by the Parole Board of Canada to drive again, though he remains on parole. Ramage, a steady defenceman and onetime captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, was convicted of impaired driving causing death and three other charges after a crash in 2003 near Toronto that killed his good friend, former NHL star Keith Magnuson, and seriously injured a 39-year-old woman, Michelle Pacheco. Ramage was sentenced to four years in prison but he was paroled after serving just 10 months. The parole board recently agreed to lift the driving ban it had imposed, following a “rare” request from Corrections Canada, a written record of the parole board decision reveals (read it in full after the jump). The board says it lifted the ban because Ramage is assessed as a low risk to reoffend, his “reintegration and motivation levels continue to be high” and, this measure will “further your gradual reintegration into the community as a law-abiding citizen.”

The parole board’s description of Ramage, in its February decision to lift the driving ban, is glowing, noting that he is a 54-year-old first-time offender.

You have been on full parole since May 1, 2012. You are described as accountable in the community, have abided by the conditions of the Board and remain totally engaged in your Correctional Plan. Your continued transparency both with those that supervise you and in your openness to the community as it relates to your index offence are to be commended.

In January, the parole board also lifted a requirement it had imposed previously, requiring Ramage to undergo psychological counselling ordered by his parole supervisor. The decision to lift that requirement was made because the clinician had terminated treatment.

The latest psychological report dated September 12, 2012 states that you have been totally compliant during treatment and have, since beginning your initial day parole release, presented in a postive, cheerful and optimistic manner and have been candid in discussing personal life challenges as well as alcohol and the consequences of your offending.

Ramage was first released from prison on passes in March 2011 and he was granted day parole in May 2011, after he had served just 10 months of his four-year prison sentence. He remains on parole in the community until July 2014, until he completes the sentence. At the hearing in May 2011, Ramage was grilled by parole board members about his spotty memory of events of Dec. 14 before the crash. Ramage and Magnuson attended the funeral of another former NHLer and then went to a reception. They also stopped at a beer store at 11:30 a.m., bought a six pack and drank in the parking lot inside their car.

“I don’t really remember going in there,” Ramage said. He described the parking-lot episode as “totally out of character for both of us.”

A toxicologist concluded that Ramage had 15 to 20 drinks in the hours before the crash, yet no one at the reception recalled that he seemed impaired, suggesting he had developed a tolerance for large quantities of alcohol. Ramage told the parole board he is a social drinker, not an alcoholic, although alcohol caused problems very early in his marriage.

“That’s a mystery, as far as my tolerance level,” he told the parole board. Ramage said he does not remember how many drinks he had at the reception. “A tragedy did happen,” Ramage said. “I take full responsibility. I wish I could recall every detail of that afternoon.”

Ramage landed a job as a scout for the St. Louis Blues, a National Hockey League team, according to an August story in the London Free Press newspaper.

Ramage has been giving speeches and making public presentations, like this one in September 2012, a “Recovery Breakfast,” held in London, Ontario and sponsored by several community agencies that deal with addictions.

The parole board has granted him other special privileges since his release, permitting him to travel out of the country for medical and employment reasons. Ramage’s destination in the U.S. was withheld in copies of the parole board documents released publicly.

Ramage played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League, including two in Toronto, during which time he served as captain of the famous franchise.

Below is the February parole decision lifting Ramage’s driving ban:

Parole decision for killer drunk driver Rob Ramage by Rob

Below are three decisions of the board, from October 2012, January 2013 and early February 2013:

Rob Ramage parole decisions by Rob

» All coverage of Ramage’s case on Cancrime

Public event in Montreal confronts honour-based violence

I’m honoured to announce that I’ll be speaking at an event in Montreal in May, sponsored by the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership and the Rona Amir Foundation. The event, Honour Crimes in Canada: Tackling Some Difficult Questions, is free and open to all, though registration is required. It’s an important debate that must continue in Canada, four years after Zainab Shafia, 19, her sisters Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad (inset), 50, were found dead in a submerged car in a shallow canal in eastern Ontario.

Since 2000, at least 15 people have been victims of violent honour crimes in Canada that led to convictions, according to my research. Another high-profile case concluded in Toronto in November last year, when Peer Khairi was convicted of second-degree murder in the honour killing of his wife Randjida in 2008. It is likely that many cases of honour-based violence in Canada are undocumented because many front-line responders still have little to no training in identifying this complex problem.

Murder isn’t the only concern. It is one outcome on a continuum of violence and domination. Forced marriages and extreme control over the social habits of young women are signals that a family subscribes to an oppressive honour code. Youth protection agencies in Montreal have acknowledged that they did not understand or recognize honour-based violence at the time that the events unfolded in the Shafia case. Police and prosecutors who handled the Shafia killings had no experience with honour crimes before the case.

There have not been any concerted efforts in Canada to quantify the scope of the problem, as has been done in England. A nine-month pilot completed in 2007-08 in four jurisdictions covered by the Crown Prosecution Service uncovered 35 cases of forced marriage and other honour crimes. This research, and other efforts, has led to a co-ordinated response that recognizes the extreme vulnerability of victims who may feel highly intimidated. British authorities are now flagging all cases where honour-based motives are suspected in forced marriage, assault or other crimes.

Honour killing threat persists in wake of Shafia deaths

Montreal’s youth protection agency (DPJ) says, according to a recent report by Journal de Montreal, that it has intervened in the cases of 13 adolescents who were at risk of honour killing since the murders nearly four years ago of four members of the Shafia family. It’s a stark reminder that the conviction and imprisonment of three members of the Shafia family has not deterred others. Zainab Shafia, 19, her sisters Sahar, 17 and Geeti, 13, and Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, were found dead on June 30, 2009, inside a submerged car discovered in a shallow canal in Kingston, Ontario. The victims are buried together in a small Islamic cemetery in Laval, just north of Montreal, Quebec. (see video of the gravesite after the jump).

According to my research, 16 people have died in honour killings in Canada since 1990 in cases that involve criminal convictions. It is likely that many other deaths in the period were not accurately categorized as honour crimes and so the total underestimates the scope of the problem.

Here’s the complete story, translated from French, published Sunday by Journal de Montreal

By Sarah-Maude Lefebvre

Severely criticized in the Shafia case, the DPJ swears it learned from its mistakes. Since the tragedy occurred in 2009, the Montreal Youth Centre was involved in 13 cases of adolescents at risk of becoming victims of honor killings.

“The story was terribly upsetting Shafia and painful for our stakeholders. Before the tragedy, the crime of honor did not exist in the imagination of Quebecers.Today, it operates much more quickly, ” says Suzanne Dessureault, assistant directorate of youth protection.

Mandatory training

The drama of the Montreal family of Afghan origin forced the DPJ to undertake a broad reflection on the concept of honour killing.

The organization has developed new tools that allowed it to intervene in cases where 13 girls were at risk of becoming victims of violence related to honor.

“I think we better detect cases before. The Shafia murder case opened my eyes to many, ” said one official who spoke to the Journal.

Since 2010, all stakeholders must DPJ mandatory training on ethnocultural diversity in order to “adjust their interventions with immigrant families.”

The “extreme” cases are forwarded to the Transcultural Clinic of the DPJ, consisting of psychologists and social workers.

“Sometimes there are situations that stakeholders do not understand or compare their values. We’re here to help, “says the head of the clinic, Martine Jacob.

“For a player, it can be a normal teenager 16 years so with boys. But not for some parents. We must find a balance between the two, although it is not always obvious. “

The concept of honor killing does not exist in the Act on the protection of youth.Each reported case is treated in an existing category, such as abuse or neglect.

Like other cases handled by the DPJ, reports of violence in connection with honor, if successful, may result in placement of the child. Stakeholders are responsible to educate families.

Rejected reports

June 30, 2009, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, Geeti, 13, and the first woman their father, Rona, 53, were found drowned in a car at the bottom of the Kingston Mills lock , Ontario.

Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Yahya his wife and their son Hamed, 21, have received a sentence of life imprisonment for the premeditated murder of these four women. The reason: honor killing.

During the trial, the DPJ was embarrassed when it was revealed that it had been warned twice the conditions under which the three girls lived in 2008 and 2009.

Batshaw Youth Center, which serves Montreal anglophones had closed the file during an initial complaint in 2008, when Sahar had recanted her story, fearing the reaction of her parents.

In 2009, the second report was received from the French side of the services that were never made aware of the first complaint. The file was closed again.

Neglect

“Today, we focus on the best situations,” says Dr. Dessureault. “Once you see an item resembling the violence related to honour an alert when a flag goes up. We improved it. “

Nevertheless, it remains a big “work to do”, as the DPJ in schools, believes Rachida Azdouz, a psychologist specializing in intercultural relations.

“This is a good start, but do not underestimate the phenomenon, she says. A person who dies of an honor killing is one death too many. “

(Note: This is a translation done through Google translate)

Horrifying truth of what child porn depicts – torture

Tom Flanagan’s outrageous public comments about child pornography have mostly stopped attracting mainstream media coverage, but the  horrifying truth about child pornography persists. It is everywhere around us, every day. Today, a 54-year-old woman from suburban Houston, Texas was sentenced to 25 years in prison on child pornography charges. The evidence in her case is heartbreaking. Investigators found photos of a naked, nine-year-old girl who is “related” to the woman, who was sexually abused and tortured.

Here is a description, from court documents, of images found by investigators,

• Fully nude girl in sexual pose on bed with stuffed animal partially hiding her face.

• Nude girl in sexual pose with her eyes closed and arms bound together above her head with green rope.

• Nude girl in sexual pose while reading a book.

The woman caught with these photos, Debra Jean Eyerly, was sentenced today to 25 years in prison. Her husband, who admitted to sexually abusing the little girl, was sentenced to 30 year sin prison.

Let’s not forget that Flanagan, the former senior adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Wildrose Party in Alberta, said that he is gravely concerned that we put people in jail for looking at photos of children being tortured/and or sexually abused because, in looking at the photos, they “do not harm another person.”

If Flanagan had seen the images from the Eyerly case, particularly the photo of the nine-year-old girl naked, with her arms bound above her head, would he really have insisted that there was no “harm” in just looking?

» Court document source

» FBI news release on sentencing

Tom Flanagan, child porn and defence of the indefensible

Some people have come to Tom Flanagan’s defence today, over his remarks about child pornography. They are misguided in supporting him, even when they attempt to contort this into a debate about free speech or academic freedom. Our history in this country, when it comes to the sexual abuse of children, is so horrendous, so appalling, that there can be no debate about whether child pornography, regardless of how or when it is consumed, is terribly damaging and worthy of jail sentences. It is one component in a continuum of exploitation and degradation. Consumers of child porn are complicit in a life-destroying criminal enterprise that has been concealed, rationalized and underreported for decades, perhaps centuries. The consumption of child pornography cannot be extracted and isolated from this continuum, to somehow insulate the consumers from the horrors done to the children captured in the images.

Here is a transcript of Flanagan’s comments, made Wednesday evening at the University of Lethbridge, as recorded by an audience member (video at bottom of this post):

“On the child pornography issue, since that was brought up, you know, a lot of people on my side of the spectrum, on the conservative side of the spectrum, are on a jihad against ah, pornography and child pornography in particular and I certainly have no sympathy for child molesters but I do have some grave doubts about putting people in jail because of their taste in pictures. I don’t look at these pictures but … the closest I ever came to it was at one point in my career, it’s a long story, I got put on the mailing list of the National Man Boy Love Association and I started getting their mailings for a couple of years so that’s about the closest I ever came to child pornography, so, you know, it is a real issue of personal liberty to what extent we put people in jail for doing something in which they do not harm another person…”

At that point, Flanagan was briefly drowned out by catcalls from the audience.
Most significant among his comments, I believe, is the line: “…to what extent we put people in jail for doing something in which they DO NOT HARM ANOTHER PERSON…” (emphasis added).
How could Flanagan or his defenders ever hope to substantiate the proposition that the consumption of child pornography does not harm another person? If a producer of child pornography is emboldened to produced more porn because more consumers ask for or seek out his product (or purchase it), he will perpetrate more abuses against children to produce that product. Child pornography is a byproduct. It is the record of the exploitation, torture and abuse of children.
Many child pornographers – those who produce it – use their product to barter with others for more product. In this case, the consumer of the video/pictures/etc also is an abuser. Is there an argument here that the sexual abuse of children is so insignificant that there should be room for debate about the criminality of consuming this byproduct?
Consider the findings of the landmark 1984 Badgley Report, the first major effort in Canada to study the scope of the problem, which found that it is a hidden epidemic. The authors found that roughly half of all females in Canada and one in three males are the victims of unwanted sexual acts before they reach adulthood. The report concluded that:

Child sexual abuse is a largely hidden yet pervasive tragedy that has damaged the lives of tens of thousands of Canadian children and youths. For most of them, their needs remain unexpressed and unmet.

That finding was widely publicized nearly 30 years ago. Three decades later, privileged, middle-aged men are suggesting that there is still cause to debate whether the consumption of child pornography is damaging (and should be criminal), despite thousands of cases that demonstrate its place in a destructive culture that has permitted the widespread and ongoing sexual abuse of children. The proposition – inferred in Flanagan’s comments – that we still need to debate the criminalization of consuming child pornography, seems fuelled only by the relative mystery of this scourge. Victims aren’t front and centre in the debate. Many rightfully remain shielded behind non-publication orders of the courts, in cases where charges are brought. Many never come forward, out of fear that they won’t be believed, or that they’ll be re-victimized. Some have been beaten or coerced into silence, often because the abusers are trusted figures – family members, teachers, coaches, priests. Only a small number of childhood sexual abuse victims are ever publicly and widely identified in media reports. This relative anonymity of victims means it may not appear to be a big problem, at least in the eyes of average citizens, who never see the faces of the victims. Even in those rare instances when victims are publicly identified, there are no visible scars. The soul-piercing wounds are invisible. Unless you’re a counsellor, police investigator or journalist, you might never have spoken openly, face to face with someone about their experience as a victim of childhood sexual abuse. I have met and talked to dozens of victims, who, despite gender, social status, ethnicity and education, all share a common trait: They are irreparably damaged and terribly transformed by the experience. I have never forgotten the bewildered look on the face of a middle aged woman I interviewed about her experience at the hands of a beloved high school teacher who coerced her into performing sex acts. Decades later, she was still traumatized and still could not fathom why and how it happened. She was a “good girl,” she recalled, one of many abused by the teacher. “It shouldn’t have happened to us,” she said.

There are other reasons to conclude rightly that viewing child pornography is damaging and criminal. There are many cases like the one involving Mark Bedford, a baby-faced predator who has admitted, since his incarceration, that his deviance began when he started looking at child pornography. He graduated to producing child pornography himself, including videos, by extorting young girls online with images and video he had captured of them.  In one case, Bedford (inset left) coerced a 12-year-old girl into simulating sex with her family dog, while he captured it on a webcam and masturbated. The FBI says such cases, called ’sextortion,’ are part of an alarming trend in the U.S. too, as abusers and pornographers exploit technology to prey on victims.

Research suggests not all consumers of child-pornography will become abusers, producers or predators. Bedford had a predilection that was activated or advanced by his consumption of images. But the images were a risk factor, a stressor or part of his behavioural pattern. In sex offender treatment, efforts are made to steer abusers to new patterns of behaviour that avoid risk factors and stressors, part of an effort to reduce repeat offending. It seems only reasonable then that we would outlaw the consumption of child pornography, knowing that it is a risk factor for some abusers and a motivator for a legion of new abusers.

» My storify that outlines the first 24 hours of the Flanagan story

Six prison guards plead guilty to beating inmates

I’ve been remiss in failing to update this story, first reported on Cancrime in October 2011, in which two convicts at maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary were beaten by staff. Late last year, six correctional officers pleaded guilty to the assaults. The staffers got conditional sentences and community service, for an incident that the prison service’s boss described, in an internal email, as a “significant incident” that threatened to bring the Correctional Service of Canada’s reputation into “disrepute.”

Here’s an account of the conclusion of the criminal cases from the October 2, 2012, Kingston Whig-Standard:

KINGSTON - Six prison guards, charged last December with beating two inmates in Kingston Penitentiary’s Segregation Unit, while both men were helpless and handcuffed, have all been given conditional sentences to serve in the community, plus community service.

Justice Judith Beaman was told that five members of the group, Adam Gallant, 36; Lucas Hearns, 30; Damon Hoobin, 32; Shane Kidd, 30; and Christopher Kinstler-Primeau, 35, were disciplined internally, after the charges came to light, and had to attend a three-day anger management program.

Assistant Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis told the judge that Hoobin and Kidd were both suspended for nine months without pay and Gallant, Hearns and Kistler-Primeau were on payless suspensions for three months. But they were able to retain their jobs with Correctional Service Canada.

The sixth member of the group, however, 34-year-old Cory MacDonald, a 12-year-career officer at the time, who was pegged as one of the ring-leaders, lost his job.

MacDonald also drew the longest sentence from Beaman after the entire group pleaded guilty, Monday, in Kingston’s Ontario Court of Justice, to two counts each of assault.

Beaman gave him a 12-month conditional sentence to serve in the community, the first six months on house arrest and the final half of his sentence subject to a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. weekday curfew and an 11 p.m. weekend curfew, plus 240 hours of community service.

Hearns received the shortest disposition: a four-month conditional sentence – half on house arrest and half under curfew – plus 60 hours of community service.

The judge gave Hoobin and Kidd nine-month conditional sentences, with house arrest for the first four and a half months and curfews identical to MacDonald’s for the remainder. They must also both perform 140 hours of community service in that time.

Gallant and Kinstler-Primeau both received six-month conditional sentences, the first three months on house arrest and the second three subject to curfew, plus they must each perform100 hours of community service work.

Laarhuis told the judge the two assaults were both committed on the morning of Oct. 4, 2011 and the trigger was the assault, by an inmate, on one of their fellow corrections officers – who was not involved in the subsequent beating.

The initial victim, he said, was conducting a routine range patrol with a fellow officer on the prison’s Upper-B range around 10:47 a.m. when an inmate – a lifer now serving time at the Special Handling Unit in Quebec – came walking toward them. He passed the officer in front, but when he reached the second guard, about two cells behind his co-worker, Beaman was told the lifer suddenly lashed out and sucker punched the officer, striking him on the chin.

Laarhuis said the guard stumbled under the impact and the inmate threw a second punch, which missed the back of his target victim’s head. The officer then regained his balance and turned to face the inmate, who assumed a fighting stance. Laarhuis said the targeted officer then lunged at his assailant, to gain control of him, and with the assistance of his co-worker was able to overpower him.

The judge was told an alarm was then sounded. Other corrections officers quickly arrived to assist and Upper-B range was locked down.

Within two minutes, according to Laarhuis, they had the lifer handcuffed behind his back and he was escorted to the prison’s Administrative Segregation Unit, arriving at the barrier doors at 10:50 a.m.

Kidd and another officer were escorting the shackled inmate, at that point, he told the judge, and Hoobin was one of three officers already in the unit, having been assigned to that post for the day. MacDonald, Kinstler-Primeau, Gallant and Hearns were among 11 guards who ended up inside the unit.

He told Beaman there were closed-circuit cameras positioned on the range, which captured the initial sucker punch, and another pointed at the barrier doors of the Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU), which recorded the inmate’s arrival with his captors. But in October, last year, Laarhuis said there was no camera inside the main foyer of the unit or the ASU holding cell – an omission, Beaman was told, that has since been remedied.

As a consequence, however, Laarhuis said there is no video footage of what actually happened in that area. The details, he told the judge, emerged from statements given later by the two inmates assaulted and by the six corrections officers themselves. He told Beaman the officers eventually gave “the most detailed account,” and even though they did not file mandatory use-of-force reports in a timely manner and only Kidd agreed to be interviewed by police, they did “to varying degrees” co-operate with the internal investigation by Corrections.

Laarhuis said the lifer eventually revealed that there had been nothing personal about his attack on the guard he hit. He said he was simply angling for a transfer out of Kingston Penitentiary. He told his interviewers that he feared a fellow inmate on his range – the second one beaten, as it happened – was going to knife him over a “dope issue” that went sour when he was out west.

Beaman was told the lifer, after he was taken to the ASU and “under pressure from management level staff” implicated that same inmate in his initial assault on the corrections officer, claiming his range neighbour had put him up to it.

The second inmate later denied having anything to do with setting up the ambush, Laarhuis told the judge. He admitted that he’d known it was going to happen, but claimed the lifer wanted a transfer to the Special Handling Unit, because he believed he’d get better medical treatment there for a stomach ailment. The second inmate suggested he got dragged into the mix because he’s “a big guy” and had “authority on the range.”

After the lifer made the claim that the other inmate was involved, however, Laarhuis said the six prison guards returned to Upper-B range and, under the pretence of doing a range search, removed him from his cell, cuffed him and took him, as well, to the holding cell in the Administrative Segregation Unit.

Beaman was told, both inmates were punched, kicked, kneed and the second man had his hand stepped on while he lay on the floor in that area.

Neither suffered any broken bones, according to Laarhuis, but both sustained extensive bruising to their faces, torsos and limbs.

Laarhuis also told the judge that it was MacDonald’s co-workers who later revealed he’d initiated the attack on the second man after someone asked the inmate: “You like to assault officers?” and he replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

At that point, the judge was told, MacDonald’s co-workers claim he delivered a roundhouse-style kick to the man’s head, dropping him to the floor.

Toronto defence lawyer, Howard Rubel, who represented the six guards, suggested their crimes were the product of frustration over “a safety issue that is not being addressed.”

He told the judge that his clients are “good people” who, under the impetus of that frustration gave in to an unjustifiable but understandable urge.

Gallant, he said, is married, the father of an infant child, involved in Big Brothers and in coaching hockey. Hoobin, also married, volunteers with the Boys and Girls Club, according to Rubel. Hearns, he said, is a hockey coach, while MacDonald fosters animals for the Humane Society.

He told Beaman that Kunstler-Primeau is a volunteer firefighter, who has coached high school basketball and Kidd is involved in environmental issues and assists the needy.

But most of them have also been victims of violence on the job, he told the judge.

Kidd, he said was stabbed by an inmate very close to his neck; Hoobin, earlier in 2011, was sucker punched in the face in a manner almost identical to what happened in this instance and Hearns was assaulted only the day before he participated in these crimes.

Beaman, in sentencing the six, told them “the measure of a just society, so they say, is how it treats its most reviled citizens.” She acknowledged that none of them had prior records and all appeared to be involved in their community. But she told them their actions had brought the entire justice system into disrepute.

Cancrime was first to report in October 2011 that the prison service’s boss, Commissioner Don Head, had reacted angrily when he was briefed about the incident. I obtained a copy of an internal email fired off by Head to staff across the country that warned that “a significant incident has been reported within one of our institutions in the Ontario Region which has the potential to bring into disrepute the reputation of CSC.” At the time Head sent out his message, Corrections Canada had not revealed any information publicly about the allegation that staff had assaulted a prisoner.

Afghan honour crime case contradicts Shafia trial witnesses

Gul Meena (inset), a young Afghan girl, is slowly recovering from an axe attack that nearly killed her, according to this new report in the New York Times. Her brother rained 15 blows on her neck and head that opened her skull. He intended to kill her. His motive was honour, the same “twisted notion of honour” at work in Canada’s infamous Shafia case, in which three members of an immigrant Afghan family were convicted of murdering four other family members, including three sisters. In both cases, the perpetrators believed that their families had been dishonoured and that the only way to cleanse the shame was to kill the offenders. The Meena case, first reported by the New York Times in December 2012, provides stark contradiction of some evidence heard during the Shafia trial (read all trial coverage). Several defence witnesses in the Canadian case, people who grew up in Afghanistan, claimed that they had never heard of honour killings in their home country.

Shafia’s half sister, Farida Nayebkheil, who lived with him in Kabul, said she had never heard of honour killings before Shafia was arrested in July 2009, along with his wife Tooba and son Hamed, and charged with murder.

“Had you ever heard about honour killings, before these charges were laid?” asked David Crowe, the lawyer representing Tooba, while questioning Nayebkheil during the trial.

“I never heard that, no,” Nayebkheil replied.

“In Afghanistan?”

“No.”

Dr. Nabi Misdaq, a language expert called by the defence team, claimed that honour killings happen only in rural areas of Afghanistan.

“But in the urban areas, I’ve never heard of honour killing happening in Kabul … or other big cities,” Misdaq said, during a hearing held in the absence of the jury.

Mainstream media have carried reports of honour crimes in urban area in Afghanistan, like this account of a woman being beheaded, along with her two children (the attack took place in a city in Ghazni province).

Anwar Yaqubi, Mohammad Shafia's half brother, outside the courthouse in Kingston. Shafia's half sister Farida Nayebkheil is behind him (cap) - photo by Rob Tripp

Shafia’s half brother, Dr. Anwar Yaqubi, offered an explanation for one of the foul curses captured by police on a wiretap. In the recording, Shafia was heard saying of his dead daughters: “Even if they come back to life a hundred times, if I have a cleaver in my hand, I will cut [them] in pieces.” Yaqubi said it was an expression that Shafia learned in childhood that he repeated in moments of rage. But Yaqubi, who lived in Afghanistan for the first several decades of his life, claimed he had never heard of honour killings.

Crown prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis, asked incredulously about this claim when he questioned Yaqubi during the trial.

“So, you’re telling us that you’ve heard Afghan fathers talk about chopping up their own children with a cleaver, but you’ve never heard about honour killing?” Laarhuis asked.
“Regarding killing for reputation, or honour, I never heard that,” Yaqubi repeated. “I don’t have any information about that. And this [case against Shafia is] the first … I heard it. But this is a shameless thing … shameful word of honour killing, which I heard, it’s really something which is bothering me, and it’s really affected me badly. And this is a wrong label which has been put here – a wrong label which has been put on a traffic accident, a wrong label which has been put on my brother.”
Jurors did not agree. The 12 decided that Shafia, Tooba and Hamed had committed murder, though, because jury deliberations in Canada are secret, there is no way of knowing if they accepted fully the prosecution’s contention that this was an honour killing, orchestrated by Shafia because he felt shamed by the conduct of three of his daughters and his first wife, Rona.
The judge who presided over the trial, Justice Robert Maranger, said it was difficult to “conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime.”

“There is nothing more honourless than the deliberate murder of, in the case of Mohammad Shafia, three of his daughters and his wife, in the case of Tooba Yahya, three of her daughters and a stepmother to all her children, in the case of Hamed Shafia three of sisters and a mother.

“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honor, a notion of honor that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honor that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”

Maranger sentenced the trio to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. They are appealing the convictions (latest news on appeals).