News
2006-01-31
Canadian
man gets four-year sentence in antigay attack
A Canadian man
has been sent to prison after he attacked a stranger with
a beer bottle because he thought the man was gay.
A Canadian man
has been sent to prison after he attacked a stranger with
a beer bottle because he thought the man was gay, the
Calgary Herald reported Saturday. Victim
Sebastien Sauvageau lost an eye as a result of the incident.
The judge sentenced Taha Ismail Amr to four
years in prison. "The only motivation for the assault
appears to be the accused's perception that the victim
was a homosexual and the fact that he is of French
nationality," Semenuk wrote. Amr had previously pleaded
guilty to aggravated assault, the newspaper reported.
Prosecutors told the court that incident, on the
night of November 1, 2003, started after Sauvageau
went to use the restroom at a nightclub. He was
wearing a skintight Halloween costume, and Amr approached
and began making antigay comments, including calling
him "French fag," the newspaper reported.
When Sauvageau turned around, Amr struck him
twice across the face with the beer bottle. The first
strike broke the bottle and the second caused several
lacerations to the victim's right eye, puncturing his
eyeball, the Herald reported. A witness found a
bloody Sauvageau and noticed that Amr had fled the bar.
Sauvageau subsequently identified Amr through a
police photo lineup. The assailant confessed to an
undercover police officer in a cell, still referring
to the victim as "a fag," according to the newspaper.
The judge said the assault was aggravated
because Amr used a weapon, which was even more
dangerous on the "gratuitous" second blow. "Given that
the accused struck the victim twice with the weapon in
the same area of the victim's body, the accused must have
deliberately intended to wound the victim," the judge
said. "The accused's assault was unprovoked...the
victim was unarmed...the accused ignored the victim's
attempts to verbally defuse the situation." (Advocate.com)
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