Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri has been sent to jail for a minimum of 11 months.
An Islamic sect community leader is the first person to be imprisoned over female genital mutilation in Australia.
But a mother and a former nurse involved in the female genital mutilation of two sisters, aged six and seven, have been spared jail.
They will instead serve a minimum of 11 months’ home detention.
On Thursday, NSW Supreme Court Justice Peter Johnson sentenced Shabbir Mohammedbhai Vaziri, 59, to a minimum 11 months’ jail and maximum 15 months for being an accessory after the fact.
“As the religious leader of the Dawoodi Bohra community in Sydney, he had manifested a clear, determined and calculated intention to obstruct the police so that no successful investigation of the use of ‘khatna’ in his own community could be achieved,” Justice Johnston said in a judgment.
“The Court further held that the offender, Vaziri, acted in this way in an effort to defeat an investigation of FGM offences, which are difficult to detect, investigate and prosecute.”
Justice Johnston also found Vaziri demonstrated no “remorse”.
Charges were laid after the girls were interviewed by a female police officer and social worker, without their parents’ knowledge… Read More>>
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
