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Teen charged in kirpan assault
denies using dagger as weapon
WSN Network
MONTREAL: A
13-year-old Montreal boy who is being accused of allegedly using his
Sikh ceremonial dagger and hairpin as weapons against two students
at his school has denied the incident ever happened. The teen, whose
identity is
protected by the
court because of his age, is charged with three counts of assault
after an alleged confrontation last September at a school in the
Montreal
borough
of LaSalle.
The teen told
Montreal
youth court on Monday that he never removed his kirpan from its
protective wrapping until he was told to by police long after the
incident was supposed to have occurred. “[A police officer] told me
to unwrap my kirpan, and I told her I was not allowed, and she said
I had no choice,” the teen testified
on Monday. “I
was wondering why they were asking me to take it out.”
The incident
allegedly took place at Cavelier de LaSalle high school in
Montreal’s
LaSalle borough on Sept. 11. The accused’s mother has testified that
her son had just been baptized a few weeks earlier, and received his
kirpan kangha as
part of his
faith. The mother said she had wrapped the kirpan that morning for
him in a cloth to wear under his clothing. The incident was
allegedly sparked when the teen told two brothers at the school to
stop following him during a lunch break. That’s when the brothers
testified that the teen pulled out his kirpan and hairpin, and began
waving them around. They testified the teen touched the end of the
kirpan to one of their chests and threatened the other brother with
the long hairpin.
The teen also denied using the hairpin as a weapon
during his testimony on Monday. The teen is one of the final
witnesses to testify at the trial. Closing arguments are also
expected to take place this week. The right for a student to wear a kirpan in school was upheld in 2006 after the Supreme Court of
Canada struck down a
Montreal school
board’s ban of the wearing of the ceremonial dagger in school. The
accused and the alleged victims in the case are enrolled
at a school that
is part of the same board.
11 February 2009
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