TRIAL DELAYS DERAIL SEX ASSAULT CASE AGAINST PROFESSOR

An “extremely serious” sexual assault case against a former Nova Scotia professor has been tossed out due to unreasonable delays. Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Patrick Murray stayed the proceedings against Behrang Foroughi-Mobarakeh, formerly of St. Francis Xavier University, after the case took three years to come to trial. The judge blamed the delays in part on the RCMP’s failure to “act on a timely basis,” pointing out it took police two years to send evidence to a forensic lab. The professor was arrested on March 31, 2014. He was charged the next day with sexual assault and released on a recognizance. In March 2016, Antigonish police asked a forensic lab in Ottawa to test evidence seized from the home of Foroughi-Mobarakeh in March 2014. “No explanation has been given for the police actions resulting in delay,” Murray said in his decision. A Supreme Court of Canada ruling last July set strict limits for trial lengths. The new timeline in superior courts is 30 months from the date charges are laid until expected end of trial.