Two men, who violently attacked a Muslim father returning from a picnic with his family, have been found guilty by a court that refused to recognize the assault as an anti-Muslim hate crime in a statement announced Tuesday.
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 a community center in Mississauga, just outside of Toronto, when two men walking by shouted an obscenity 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 late Tuesday changed the incident to 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."
The family has faced emotional, physical and financial hardship as a result of the attack and Canada should do more to help victims, an official with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) said in a statement.
"We need to change this pattern of neglect and hardship for survivors of such attacks," said NCCM Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Nadia Hasan. "These survivors deserve help, yet as a country, we have not done enough."
The NCCM called for a National Support Fund for Victims of Hate-Motivated Crimes to be established by the federal government.
A sentencing hearing for the two men, who are brothers, will begin on March 31.