Judge Dismisses Top Count In Female Genital Mutilation Case

U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman issued a decision last night dismissing the most serious charge against two Metro Detroit doctors accused of performing female genital mutilation (FGM) procedures on as many as 100 girls. The judge dismissed the charge of conspiracy to take a minor across state lines "with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity," agreeing with the defense’s position that even if the charges of performing the operations were proven, the actions would not constitute "sexual activity." Dr. Jumana Nagarwala and Dr. Fakhruddin Attar still face other charges in the case, along with six other defendants, including some of the girls’ parents.

In June 2017, the FBI and local authorities charged Nagarwala and Attar along with six other members of Farmington Hills’ Dawoodi Bohra religious community. Dawoodi Bohra are Indian Muslims, some of whom practice genital cutting on young girls as a religious rite of passage and as a way of controlling girls' sexual desire. The defendants’ attorneys say the operations were harmless and did not involve cutting.

The criminal complaint filed against the defendants by the FBI includes an interview with a 7-year-old whose court-ordered medical exam found evidence of surgery. The Minnesota girl told the FBI she could "barely walk and felt the pain all the way down to her ankle" after the procedure in Attar’s Livonia clinic. The exam found healing incisions to the girl’s clitoral hood and labia.

Nagarwala, 44, of Northville was not employed by Attar’s clinic. She was an emergency room physician at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The defendants plan to assert religious freedom at trial. The charge of transporting minors for “criminal sexual activity” carried the possibility of a life sentence. After the arrests in this case, Michigan moved to make FGM a 15-year felony. At the time of the alleged crimes, the maximum penalty was five years in prison.

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