Wife was ‘subhuman’ to husband and family
Crown says husband in arranged marriage felt ‘betrayed’ by his wife’s bisexuality
‘‘ The Safdars implemented a plan to make Sara look crazy.
JEFF LEVY
Crown attorney
There is no standard way for a victim of domestic violence to behave.
Some leave the first time it happens. Many do not. Some disclose their abuse when given the chance, others do not.
And there is no standard victim of domestic violence.
Some are unsophisticated and uneducated. Some are resourceful and have university degrees.
To think Sara Salim doesn’t fit the mould of a domestic violence victim is to embrace a stereotype.
So says assistant Crown attorney Jeff Levy in his closing submissions in the longest, most perplexing domestic violence case to play out in a Hamilton courtroom.
Sara Salim is smart — a medical doctor in fact — but she is also the alleged victim of torture, abuse and confinement at the hands of her husband and his family.
Being a doctor does not make her less susceptible to abuse, Levy says, or more likely to escape it.
Sara had opportunities to tell her parents, friends, doctors — even police — of the abuse.
But she didn’t tell until she was living with her parents in the United States, safe and far from the Safdar family.
It is 11 months since this trial began before Justice Andrew Goodman.
Soon he will untangle conflicting narratives to arrive at his verdict.
In an arranged marriage, Sara wed Adeel Safdar, a biochemist, who brought her to live in his family’s home in Binbrook.
The Crown says in 2014 the Safdar family branded Sara with an iron, forced her to carve death threats against her husband and infant daughter into her own leg, and ultimately broke her jaw in
two places.
These and other injuries are for the most part not in dispute. How Sara got them, is.
The defence says Sara was mentally ill and caused all the harm to herself. She invented the abuse to win her child back in a custody dispute.
“The Safdars implemented a plan to make Sara look crazy,” says Levy.
Adeel Safdar, 38, is charged with assault, assault with a weapon, assault bodily harm, threatening death and aggravated assault against Sara, his estranged wife.
His mother, Shaheen Safdar, 63, faces the same charges.
His brother, Aatif Safdar, 36, is charged with assault bodily harm, assault with a weapon, assault and threatening death.
Levy challenged statements made by defence lawyers that it is ridiculous to think a woman as educated as Sara would fall prey to prolonged abuse.
Levy counters that Sara’s response to her abuse should not be judged against what lawyers in a courtroom think is appropriate.
He says Sara was not mentally ill and did not inflict some 200 scars on her own body.
Adeel testified Sara revealed after their wedding that she had a history of cutting and depression.
Levy says there are no records to prove that and Sara’s family denies it.
He points out the only time in Sara’s life with accounts of mental illness coincides perfectly with her months living with the Safdars.
The doctors she saw during those nine months had difficulty coming up with a diagnosis not because Sara was good at hiding her illness but because she was never mentally ill, Levy says.
Also her medical training allowed her to convincingly play the part of someone with psychiatric issues, which was the instruction the Safdars gave her.
Not obeying, Sara believed, would mean she would be subjected to further harm or her daughter might be spirited away to Pakistan.
During the 11 days she was involuntarily admitted to St. Joseph’s Healthcare’s psychiatric unit while living with the Safdars, Sara displayed none of the behaviour the family reported, such as hitting herself.
Levy says the origin for the Safdars’ abuse of Sara was discovering she is bisexual.
After the wedding, Sara told Adeel she was attracted to women.
Sara has testified this is true. Levy reminded the judge that when the issue of Sara’s sexuality was first raised in crossexamination by Paquette, he objected to it and argued it was irrelevant.
But he now says he has changed his mind and “I submit Sara’s bisexuality was the initial motive” for the abuse.
Adeel, who is Muslim, testified that bisexuality is “frowned upon” in his religion. He said he felt “betrayed” that Sara didn’t tell him before the wedding and if she had, he never would have married her.
“Adeel would never get over his perceived betrayal,” Levy said. “This was embarrassing. His family wouldn’t accept it. He wouldn’t accept it. She became subhuman to him and his family.”