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Canadian Sikh teen acquitted of
'kirpan' assault
TORONTO: In a
major victory for the Montreal Sikh community, a Sikh teenager
accused of assaulting two schoolmates with his 'kirpan' has been
acquitted by a Canadian court, which suggested that racial prejudice
might have played a role in the boy being charged.
Montreal youth
court judge Gilles Ouellet said there is technical evidence to
convict the 13-year-old boy of one minor charge of threatening to
assault with a hairpin but gave him an "absolute discharge", saying
that it is time for everyone involved to move on.
The "absolute
discharge" means the boy will not have a criminal record. He was
acquitted of two other charges of assault with his hairpin and
kirpan, the Sikh ceremonial dagger, media reported here.
The incident
occurred on September 11 last year when the boy and two of his
friends told the two alleged victims to stop following them during a
lunch break in the Cavelier-de- Lasalle High School in Montreal. The
duo alleged that the Sikh boy assaulted them by threatening them
with the hairpin and one of them said he was poked with the kirpan.
"If the three
boys had the same nationality, and the same faith, this case would
not have ended up before the court," Ouellet said.
22
April 2009
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