The
Detroit Free Press reported yesterday that a federal district court judge has released on bond to house arrest a doctor and his wife who are facing conspiracy charges in the first prosecutions under the federal female genital mutilation statute. (See
prior posting.) The paper reports in part:
Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, 53, of Farmington Hills, is accused of letting another doctor use his clinic to perform genital cutting procedures on two 7-year-old Minnesota girls; his wife, Farida Attar, 50, is accused of holding the girls' hands during the procedure to keep them from squirming and to calm them.
Defense lawyers have claimed the Attars did not engage in any criminal act, and that the procedure at issue is a protected religious rite-of-passage that involved no cutting....
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward dropped a bombshell in court today in telling Friedman that the government believes the defendants have subjected as many as 100 victims to the procedure.
The primary defendant, Dr. Jumana Nagarwala who is accused of performing the procedures remains in jail pending trial.
