News agencies – September 26, 2012
For months, Bahar Ebrahimi had been rebelling against her parents, complaining their Afghan culture and Muslim religion were suffocating her. It was June 2010, Grand Prix weekend in downtown Montreal, and on two straight nights the 19-year-old stayed out past dawn against her parents’ wishes. For her mother, Johra Kaleki, the behaviour confirmed that all her efforts to steer her eldest daughter on the right path had failed. “I felt like she would never be fixed,” she told Sgt.-Det. Alexandre Bertrand in an interrogation video played in Quebec Court. As her crying husband spoke to Bahar in the basement of their Dorval home, Ms. Kaleki went upstairs and grabbed a large knife from the kitchen counter, the one she used to chop meat, she recounted. Bahar survived the attack, suffering serious knife wounds to her head and shoulder. Ms. Kaleki, 40, is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and illegal use of a weapon.
The hearing this week before Judge Yves Paradis is to determine whether the video and other statements made by Ms. Kaleki can be entered into evidence during the trial, which is scheduled to begin in January 2013.
