National Post – October 4, 2012
Ebrahim Ebrahimi’s 19-year-old daughter, her head bloodied from severe knife wounds, had just been rushed to hospital, and his handcuffed wife was under arrest. Two years later, Mr. Ebrahimi is trying to piece that life back together, and he took the stand in defence of his wife at her trial for attempted murder. He acknowledged that Johra Kaleki attacked their daughter, Bahar Ebrahimi — it was his intervention that saved Bahar — but he praised his wife as a gentle woman who was a “best friend” to their four daughters.
Montreal police have described the attack as an honour crime, based in large part on a four-hour statement Ms. Kaleki gave the night she was arrested. In that statement, which has been played in court, Ms. Kaleki described the strict rules she and her husband, immigrants from Afghanistan, enforced in their household. Ms. Ebrahimi and her sisters were forbidden from drinking, smoking, staying out late and having boyfriends, she said.
Ms. Ebrahimi had been rebelling against her parents and their Muslim faith, and on the weekend she was attacked, she stayed out past dawn two nights in a row. Mr. Ebrahimi will continue his testimony when the case resumes on Jan. 21.
