A Canadian court handed a six-year prison sentence Tuesday for two men who violently attacked a Muslim family returning from a family picnic in Mississauga, Ontario in 2018.
The Ontario Court of Justice Provincial Offences Court in Brampton sentenced brothers Janis Corhamzic and Adem Corhamzic, who were previously found guilty of aggravated assault, to six years.
Mohammed Abu Marzouk, 39, and his family – wife and four-and six-year-old daughters – were in their vehicle and about to return home from a picnic near the Mississauga Valley Community Center, when two men walking by shouted obscenities and called him "terrorist."
The pair began kicking the car. Marzouk got out and was attacked. His wife Diana Attar begged for them to stop, then spotted a police car and ran toward it for help. When she returned, her husband was lying on the ground, bleeding profusely from his ear.
Marzouk was rushed to a Toronto trauma center where he was taken into surgery as he suffered a brain hemorrhage and endured multiple fractures during the assault.
The unprovoked attack left the father of two with 10-15 skull fractures. At first, police framed the incident as the result of road rage, but upon further investigation authorities termed the incident "a hate crime."
During the attack, the men were heard insulting and cursing Arabs. Apparently, taking those words into consideration, Superior Court Justice Fletcher Dawson termed the assault as "anti-Arab, not anti-Muslim."
Attar called the vicious assault "the darkest side of humanity, one that we would not wish upon anyone."
