Court upholds dangerous tag

Justice says no reason to change status of man who stalked ex-wife

The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld a dangerous-offender designation for a man convicted of repeated offences against his former wife, but has set aside his indeterminate jail sentence.

In May 2016, a Provincial Court judge declared Safa Malakpour a dangerous offender following offences committed against his former wife, Fariba Safaei-Chalaksara, that included criminal harassment, assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping.

Court heard that Malakpour, 60, married his wife in Iran, had three children together and came to Canada in 1995, but after living in apparent harmony with him for many years, his wife gradually became unhappy and resentful of him.

Safaei-Chalaksara left their home in 2005 and the couple divorced in 2006, but Malakpour, who adheres to the Shia branch of the Islamic faith and follows Shariah law, considered the divorce as one of convenience, intended to deal with financial problems. He maintained they remained married under Shariah law.

Malakpour’s first offences occurred between December 2005 and March 2007 and involved thousands of phone calls to his ex-wife at her home and place of employment. He also repeatedly followed her and confronted her and made threats that she should die and that he would kill her if she didn’t return to him.

Malakpour got a 30-month jail sentence, but after his release from prison and while he was on parole, he committed his second offences against his former wife, calling her more than 1,000 times, contrary to a no-contact order.

He was charged with criminally harassing his wife and the judge who had imposed the 30-month sentence, making various threats, including threats to blow up the judge’s home and his ex-wife’s place of business.

After entering guilty pleas, he was sentenced to two years less a day of prison and three years’ probation, but while he was on probation in 2012 he called his ex-wife’s male friend, leaving numerous profane and threatening messages for him and his ex-wife.

On Jan. 11, 2012, he went to his ex-wife’s apartment, found her in the underground parking garage, forced her into a car and assaulted her.

Malakpour demanded to know why she’d left him and had another man in her life, called her a “pimp” in Farsi and held a pair of wire cutters to her throat, saying “don’t scream or I will cut your throat.”

The assault also included him punching her 10 times, mostly in the face, using his fists and the wire cutters.

Following an application by the Crown, the Provincial Court judge designated him a dangerous offender and ordered him jailed indefinitely.

On his appeal, Malakpour appealed both his dangerous-offender status and his jail sentence.

In her reasons for judgment, B.C. Court of Appeal Justice Barbara Fisher noted that the case was “somewhat unusual” in that Malakpour was not a person who had led a criminal lifestyle or had a lengthy criminal record and all of his crimes had occurred in the context of a marital separation.

She concluded that there was no basis to interfere with the dangerous-offender designation, but found that the indeterminate sentence was not the least-intrusive sentence that achieved the paramount goal of public protection in Malakpour’s circumstances and set that sentence aside.

Malakpour received a determinate sentence of 101/2 years in prison less 61/2 years’ credit for time served to be followed by a 10-year, long-term supervision order.

Justice Mary Newbury and Justice John Savage agreed with Fisher’s reasons.