Three minutes is how long it took for Aset Magomadova to kill her daughter Aminat on February 26, 2007. She was tried and convicted of killing her daughter and was sentenced this week.
The judge decided against imposing any jail time saying that would be more about vengeance than justice. Instead, Aset received a suspended sentence and three years probation.
Aset is devout and prayed several times daily in her sewing room. At trial Aset claimed her daughter lunged at her with a knife in her sewing room. Aset reacted by wrapping a head scarf around her daughter's neck and, she claimed, told Aminat to drop the knife before she lost consciousness and died. Why Aset continued to choke Aminat after she was unconscious is not made clear.
A knife was later found in the sewing room, but Aminat's fingerprints were not found on it. The claim of an assault with a knife was rejected by the Court.
According to documents released at the 2009 trial, Aminat didn't fit in at school because of her poor English, weight and clothing.
She fell in with a bad crowd and in 2007 claimed to be using drugs, stealing and behaving promiscuously. Aminat had run away several times and was known to stay at youth shelters.
What really happened in the sewing room will never be known. But certainly Aminat died because she was no longer under her mother's control. And the death was an outgrowth of a control struggle.
To some degree I can understand the judge's point that jail serves vengeance more than rehabilitation. I have argued such points myself -- jail is not very good at rehabilitating anyone. And perhaps Aset poses no risk to anyone else.
But prison is there, sometimes, to express community revulsion at a crime. And here, when a parent kills a child, pretends it was self-defence and does so in a context of a religiously based control struggle, community denunciation demands a penalty that include prison.
I will accept Aminat was overweight, did illegal drugs and engaged in sexual activities her mother disapproved of. I will not accept that Aminat's life was not worthy or of value. A suspended sentence says Canadians don't value the life of a confused, overweight Muslim girl -- it suggests such a person falls outside the protection of the law.
And that's wrong.
Everyone, including Aminat (and yes Aset too), is entitled to respect, dignity and life. A suspended sentence sends the wrong message.
Sometimes prison is necessary.
4 comments:
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the reasoning that says a person isn't a threat to anyone else demeaning to the person to whom the threat was real. I may be more willing to look the other way when an aggrieved parent kills the child molester than I am this case where a mother killed her daughter for no good reason, but either way justice (quaint, I know) demands punishment if for no other reason than to say the crime victim has value.
I agree -- I suppose the judge meant not a threat to anyone else still alive. Reminds me of the joke about someone who killed his parents and asked for mercy because he was an orphan...
It sounds to me like everyone gets one free murder as long as they can prove THAT person was the ONLY person they wanted to kill.
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