An Iranian refugee in Australia who was convicted three months ago of brutally beating his wife was convicted again last week of repeated thefts—and again he avoided serving any jail time.
In both cases, the judges decided that Ravanbaksh Kakavand was in a very delicate mental state and that to pack him off to prison would likely interfere with his mental health care and cut off his recovery.
Kakavand’s mental state is blamed on torture that he received while imprisoned in Iran, according to his testimony.
Last month, Kakavand was convicted fraud and theft involving more than $30,000 for stealing dozens of items from several retailers in the area of Adelaide, South Australia.
Chief Magistrate Liz Bolton said she decided against jailing Kakavand only after much consideration.
“This offending is serious, repetitive, calculated and the only appropriate penalty is a term of imprisonment,” he aid in court. “It’s important to send a message … that [theft] is not appropriate and will be significantly penalized. [But] to sentence you [to prison] now would have a detrimental effect on your mental health.”
She gave him an 18-month sentence, but immediately suspended all of it.
This is Kakavand’s second conviction for a major crime this year. In May he was convicted of beating his wife and breaking her skull. But he was also given a suspended sentence at that trial and spent no time in jail.
The wife hugged her husband after he was freed in that case, and they left the courthouse together.
Kakavand, 45, beat his wife, Elnaz Adalat, during a “complete and utter mental meltdown” last December. He bashed her on the head with a chunk of wood he found beside a highway, where passersby grabbed him and stopped the beating. The injuries Adalat sustained kept her in the hospital for 10 days.
Justice Trish Kelly of the Supreme Court of the state of South Australia said, “I have been concerned by your apparent inability to acknowledge that you have an anger management problem. Let me repeat: you have an anger management problem and it places you, your wife and everyone in your immediate environment at risk so long as you do not address it. It’s important that you understand.… You need a particular focus on anger management in order to deal with stress in an appropriate way.”
Kelly said Kakavand was fortunate Adalat lived and he was not facing murder charges. “Had those witnesses not had the presence of mind and physical capacity to restrain you, you might well have killed her,” she told Kakavand.
But Kelly’s sentencing also took into consideration that Kakavand had been tortured by the Iranian police before he escaped to Australia as a refugee.
Kelly said that Adalat’s insistence that her husband sponsor her family’s immigration to Australia prompted a “complete and utter mental meltdown.”
The incident wasn’t the only instance of violence Kakavand has exhibited. Months after his arrest, Kakavand assaulted a psychiatrist for writing “something he didn’t like” in his notes. Justice Kelly said Kakavand’s “fragile psychological state” was chronic and ongoing, but also treatable.
“I’m ultimately persuaded that, in your case, it is appropriate to take the unusual step of exercising my discretion to suspend your jail term. You have the unswerving support of your wife and doctors are optimistic that, with treatment, you will not pose a risk to the community,” the judge concluded.