During his trial, Ravan-bakhsh Kakavand, 45, pleaded not guilty to bashing his wife with a block of wood and breaking her skull, claiming he was mentally impaired at the time of the incident and that he had had a flashback to his time in Iran when he was arrested and tortured as a political prisoner in 1993.
He told the court that at the time of the incident, which occurred December 1, 2009 near Hahndorf, about 30 minutes outside Adelaide, South Australia—he believed his wife was the Iranian “secret police.”
The court heard that the defendant had spent six years in an Iranian prison awaiting execution. After three unsuccessful attempts, Kakavand finally escaped to Australia. According to Kakavand, who said he had no recollection of beating his wife, he believed he was beating the Iranian secret police.
“I wanted to kill them,” he said, referring to the secret police with whom he thought he was fighting. “I thought the secret police had come. I hit them, I hit them…. I never hit her. I told them she’s not involved with the politics…. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
But Justice Trish Kelly, who presided over the trial without a jury, didn’t buy the defense’s plea that Kakavand was a victim of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and handed down the guilty verdict Monday.
Justice Kelly explained that Kakavand had argued with his wife over his refusal to sign sponsorship papers for her sister on the morning of the incident. Justice Kelly said Kakavand attempted to “distance himself from any disagreement” in subsequent interviews with psychiatrists and in court and found any dissociative state of Kakavand’s “did not commence until after the accused had commenced the assault upon his wife.”
“I am satisfied that at the time when the accused commenced the assault upon his wife outside the car, his actions were deliberate and purposeful. The accused, already in a fragile psychological state that morning, simply lost his temper and his self-control as a result of the disagreement in the car with his wife,” she wrote.
Justice Kelly said it was in that state Kakavand “intentionally” began beating his wife on the head. Three men near the scene of the crime ran to the victim’s aid and restrained Kakavand. One of the men had described Kakavand as in a rage with “tunnel vision on killing whoever was on the ground.”
Kakavand’s wife was hospitalized for 10 days and suffered a broken skull and cuts to her face, arms, wrist and hands and bruises to the abdomen. The victim, who did not testify during the trial, was present in support of her husband when the verdict was handed down Monday. Following the hearing, the pair hugged outside the court.
As part of his bail conditions, Kakavand is not allowed to live with his wife. His sentence will be determined March 17.
