A serial sex offender who randomly targeted women not only called for leniency from the court to save him from immigration troubles, but also said he should serve his sentence at home because a recent change in the law allows it.
• Also read: Pervert guilty of assaulting eight women
“The legislature requires [la prison à domicile]because it promotes recovery, it targets people who deserve a second chance,” advocated defense attorney Me Réginal Victorin this Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse.
The attorney, citing Federal Attorney General David Lametti, flew in favor of his client Sobhi Akra, who he says does not have to pay too much for a series of sexual assaults that occurred from October 2017 to November 2018.
Akra, 39, was still working with the same approach. After randomly selecting a woman, he came from behind to grab her and grab the victim’s genitals.
“He attacked eight vulnerable women, including two minors,” recalled the Crown’s Me Carolyne Paquin.
Photo courtesy of SPVM
Sobhi Akra
Invoice C-5
Upon arrest and arraignment, Akra pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual assault and three counts of attempted sexual assault.
However, when the Crown called for 22 months’ imprisonment and the defense suggested six, changes in the law have changed the situation. Since the recent passage of Bill C-5, community sentencing, aka house arrest, has become available again for sexual assault.
In Akra’s case, he was already entitled to house arrest on technical grounds, but the spirit of the draft law says such a conviction is no longer “extraordinary,” the defense said.
“What has changed [pour Akra] it is that the courts are encouraged to grant a stay,” pleaded Me Victorin.
The crown is against it
Not surprisingly, the Crown was adamantly opposed to Akra getting away with it without going to jail.
“It is important that Canadians have confidence in their justice system, which is there to protect them,” said Me Paquin, recalling the number of victims.
Therefore, she maintained her position that Akra deserves 22 months in prison and 3 years probation “to ensure some control over the sexual aggressor”. And that, even if such a verdict would increase the chances that Akra would then be expelled from the country.
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Judge Alexandre St-Onge will make his decision in April.
Several defendants have been released from house arrest since the law changes, including sex offender Jonathan Gravel and a stepmother who beat and starved her husband’s son.
For his part, in a letter recently sent to his Canadian counterpart, the Quebec Attorney General denounced the recent C-5 federal law.
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