'Flogging' man sentenced next month

Last Modified: 28 Aug 2008
Source: ITN

A devout Muslim who was found guilty of child cruelty after forcing two boys to flog themselves during a religious ceremony will be sentenced next month.

On Wednesday a jury at the Manchester Crown Court found Syed Mustafa Zaidi, 44, guilty of encouraging the boys, aged 15 and 13, to beat themselves at a community centre in Levenshulme, Manchester, on January 19.

The boys both received multiple lacerations to their backs, mainly superficial, with several deeper cuts.

During the case - the first of its kind under British law - the jury heard Zaidi attended a meeting two days before the ceremony, where it was made clear that under-16s were not permitted to flog themselves.

A 20-minute film of the event was played to the jury of five men and seven women. It shows Zaidi, dressed in blue jeans and bare-chested, among a group of around 150 men who are chanting and singing during the Shia Muslim Ashura ceremony.

Zaidi, a warehouse supervisor, flogs himself with a zanjeer zani, an implement which has a wooden handle with chains and blades attached, until his back becomes bloody from the cuts.

The boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted they wanted to beat themselves, but not under duress and not using Zaidi's zanjeer zani.

Both boys also admitted they had flogged themselves with a smaller zanjeer zani from the age of six in Pakistan.

One of the boys, who was 13 at the time, said Zaidi told them both: "Start doing it, start doing it". He told the jury: "We said 'we don't want to do it'."

He said he saw Zaidi flogging himself with the zanjeer zani before washing his blood from it and handing it to the 15-year-old boy.

The youngster said Zaidi was "pulling him and pushing him, 'keep doing it', telling people 'this is a sad moment and look he's not doing it'.

The boy said: "He goes 'I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it'. He kept pressuring him, make him do the knife thing, pulling him, trying to get his T-shirt off, pulling and pushing him. He was saying 'just do it, just do it'."

He said the 15-year-old boy "swung it once or twice and said 'I don't want to do it anymore'," before being pulled away by another man.

The Ashura ceremony takes place during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, and commemorates the death of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and a central figure in the Shia faith.

Zaidi denied his actions were wrong, saying: "This is a part of our religion."

He told the jury: "It was an emotional time and the children were happy, they asked for it. No one forced anyone."

Zaidi also said: "If I'd known this would be the result of breaking the law I would never have done it."

The case was adjourned for sentencing at Manchester Crown Court on September 24.

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