US federal judge has dismissed new charges against an Indian-origin doctor accused of performing female genital mutilation, in what’s believed to be the primary of its kind case within the country, consistent with media reports. Dr Jumana Nagarwala had sought a dismissal of a charge of conspiracy to travel with intent to interact in illicit sexual conduct involving two 7-year-old Minnesota girls who were delivered to Metro Detroit for what prosecutors call an illegally performed procedure, The Detroit News reported. The case is believed to be the US’ first involving female genital mutilation and emerged in April 2017 when Nagarwala was arrested and accused of heading a conspiracy that lasted 12 years and involved seven people , it said.
Judge Bernard Friedman dismissed the fourth superseding indictment prosecutors had filed within the case, ruling that it amounted to a vindictive prosecution. Nagarwala was accused of performing genital mutilation on nine girls at a suburban Detroit clinic. She denies any crime and says she performed a spiritual custom. the women were from Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota.
She and three others were charged in April 2017 under a Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) statute gone by Congress. Judge Friedman dismissed those charges in 2018 after ruling the statute was unconstitutional. Friedman ruled that Congress didn’t have the facility to enact a federal law that banned female genital mutilation within the us . Prosecutors in March 2021 added charges of creating false statements to federal officers and tampering with witnesses. Friedman called the newest alterations to the lingering case clearly unreasonable and indicative of vindictiveness, and ordered a dismissal during a ruling issued on Tuesday.
It is unreasonable for the prosecutor to bring any of those charges in light of the Court’s ruling that the FGM (female genital mutilation) statute is unconstitutional, MLive Media Group quoted Friedman as saying. All of the fees presented within the fourth superseding indictment require a showing that defendants committed, or conspired to commit, a federal offence…It is alleged that defendants falsely told enforcement that FGM wasn’t being performed in their community which they conspired to, and did, tell community members to offer enforcement an equivalent misinformation. “But telling such lies, conspiring to try to to so, and coercing others to try to to so wasn’t a criminal offense during the time-frame in dispute (May 2016 – April 2017) because the statute making FGM a federal offence was unconstitutional,” Friedman said.
The government argued that female genital mutilation was a federal offence until the court declared the law unconstitutional in November 2018. The Court rejects this argument, Friedman wrote in his ruling. The Court’s ruling that Congress lacked the authority to pass (the ban) means the statute was void initially (from the beginning).
The procedure, abbreviated as Female genital mutilation (FGM), is practised by some members of the Dawoodi Bohra, a Muslim sect from India that features a small community in Metro Detroit. Authorities allege Minnesota mothers Haseena Halfal and Zainab Hariyanawala brought their daughters to Detroit in February 2017 for the procedure. Authorities said the trip constituted a federal crime, which carries a penalty of up to 30 years in prison and a USD 250,000 fine.
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