DAR AL HARB-CANADA: ISLAMIC DIVORCE, A STABBED WIFE AND CANADIAN LAW

Islamic divorce cited in sentencing
Man from Lebanon jailed 6 years for knifing wife, infant
January 27, 2007 Sean Gordon QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF

MONTREAL–A Quebec judge has cited a Lebanese Montrealer's refusal to give his wife an Islamic divorce as one aggravating factor in sentencing him for a knife attack on the woman and their 15-month-old daughter.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Martin Vauclair sentenced the man to six years for two counts of aggravated assault, saying "there is something unhealthy and unacceptable" in his steadfast opposition to granting his wife a divorce under sharia law.

Withholding such a divorce, the judge said, is an unfair burden on the woman, who was stabbed seven times, including in the face, and lives in isolation from family and friends in Lebanon.
Vauclair said the refusal effectively means the wife will not be able to go to her homeland where she would be placed either under house arrest in a group home, or forced to live apart from her parents in "a country she will never be able to leave."

The husband's guilty plea and clean record notwithstanding, the judge noted physical and emotional scars the woman and the child carry, adding this also was an unprovoked instance of domestic violence where a weapon was used against a child.

The shaven-headed accused, who cannot be named to protect his daughter's identity, listened to the ruling through an interpreter.

Outside court, Crown prosecutor Sophie Lavergne said the sentence is appropriate but "still limits" the woman's ability to return home.

Defence lawyer Hanan Mrani said the judge erred in considering the divorce issue, saying "he gave it way too much weight."

The matter of Islamic law is politically sensitive in Quebec, where a debate is raging over the accommodation of religious and cultural minorities. Like Ontario, it recently banned religious tribunals – whether Catholic, Jewish or Muslim – from ruling on family disputes.

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