Baby-stabber refuses to grant wife sharia divorce
The Montreal Gazette ^ | January 23, 2007 | KATHERINE WILTON
canada.com
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.
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