Conviction Islamic institutions and contexts Ruqya, shrine, and healing contexts Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada · 2017

Canada: mosque director convicted of assaulting a congregant during a 'curse removal'

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

imam and director of a mosque and Islamic centre

Organization

Masjid Al-Hidayah and Islamic Cultural Centre

Spiritual nexus

The judge's findings supply the nexus: religious authority over a vulnerable counselee, a manufactured curse, and engineered isolation.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2017-01-01 · conviction and sentence

British Columbia court (Judge Crawford), Canada. Saadeldin Bahr, director and imam of the Masjid Al-Hidayah, was convicted of sexually assaulting a married congregant — who was suffering depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety and had come to him for counselling — after telling her she had 'a bad curse' requiring spiritual removal and taking her to a storage room in 2013. Sentenced to three and a half years, 20 years on the sex-offender registry and a firearms prohibition; the judge found his position of power and his isolation of the victim from her family central.

Primary record

national public broadcaster verdict and sentencing report CBC News, 'Port Coquitlam imam convicted of sexual assault sentenced' (2017).: Reports the conviction, the curse pretext, and the judge's findings.

Related record