Brutal attack tears apart family, community

The victim wasn't in the St. Paul courtroom Friday when Afif Abdiaziz Ahmed was sentenced to 17½ years in prison.

Ahmed beat his wife so badly last summer in her St. Paul apartment that she is in a prison of her own: She has permanent brain damage and scars. She will never be able to care for her 17-month-old son because she will never be able to care for herself.

Advocates and law enforcement authorities say domestic violence often is a taboo topic in the male-dominated Somali community. Women are strongly discouraged from reporting it, said Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center.

There is a "deep mistrust in the system," he said. "This case created bad disagreement in the community. Most of the men didn't like that the women [took the case] this far."

Ahmed, 27, was charged with nine felony counts, including first-degree criminal sexual conduct and first-degree assault. He pleaded guilty to first-degree assault in exchange for the other charges being dropped. Before sentencing, defense attorney John Riemer made a motion to withdraw Ahmed's plea, arguing the sentence was extreme. Ramsey County District Judge M. Michael Monahan denied it.

A court-appointed guardian prepared a victim impact statement that was read in court: "Recovery has been very painful and slow," it said in part. The victim "has regained some of her memory; for example, she now knows her son. She knows that her son lives with her sister and grandmother."However, she does not understand that she has lost parental rights to her son, nor does she understand the concept of motherhood," the statement said.

Prosecutor Derek Fitch also spoke for the victim. "She was living independently in an apartment," he said. "She was looking for and applying for work. She had gotten a set of tapes to help her learn English. ... On July 24, 2006, the defendant ended that life. [The victim] will never live on her own again. She will never become a part of this society. She will spend the rest of her life in a long-term-care facility surrounded by and cared for by people she does not know."

Asked whether he had anything to say, Ahmed responded through an interpreter, "I'd like to withdraw the plea." Monahan reminded him that motion had been denied. Ahmed replied that he had nothing to say.

Saying the injuries to the victim could "charitably be characterized as heinous," the judge imposed the sentence.

No one appeared in the courtroom gallery on behalf of the victim or the defendant. Jamal said that he'd encouraged the victim's relatives to come to court but that they fear a backlash from the community. "If we talk about it, maybe there's hope," he said. "But nobody even wants to talk about it."

Elders try to discourage women from reporting domestic violence and pressure them to drop cases or not show up in court, he said.

Lucky Farah, a legal advocate with the Domestic Abuse Project in Minneapolis, painted a less grim picture. If a woman is being abused, the elders and family members "stick together to try to solve the problem," she said. "That's how it's always been in Somalia.

"They don't have bad intentions," she said, but they need more education on the dynamics of domestic violence.

Too often, the community thinks of domestic violence "as a normal marriage issue," she said. "If they were more educated to think of it as a problem, then the whole thing might be different."

Farah said she works with two or three Somali women each week but knows there are more that go unreported.

Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said Friday that by the time a case has reached her office, "we've already in some measure gotten past some of the most important cultural barriers. Beyond the case itself, we often continue to have concerns about the isolation of the victim from important support systems that can often result from a domestic abuse victim reporting her partner to police.

"The level of brutality in this case really set it apart from most cases we've dealt with," Gaertner said. "It's amazing she survived. The lifelong results of those injuries are absolutely tragic."

Ahmed showed no signs of remorse, said St. Paul police Sgt. Paul Schnell. Nor did he offer any explanation beyond telling police that he cut her face and genitals so "she will never mess with another man again," the complaint said.

"Clearly ... he viewed her as his property to be done with what he wished," Schnell said.

The attack happened late July 24, 2006, in the 1200 block of St. Anthony Avenue. A relative made an anonymous 911 call early on July 25.

"It appears that her face had been beaten and cut numerous times," the police report said of the victim. "Her head had so many lacerations and so much blood on it, her face was hard to identify as a human head."

Ahmed beat her with his fists and a metal pole. He raped her with a knife.

He told police that he fed and bathed their 5-month-old child after beating his wife into unconsciousness. He admitted to stepping over her body as he went back and forth to the kitchen with the baby.

Police found the infant in his crib next to his injured mother.

Pat Pheifer • 651-298-1551 • ppheifer@startribune.com