CANADA • Shirel ATTAR, 14 ~ Montreal QC

Attar won't be held criminally responsible: Crown
Prosecutors accept Montrealer was schizophrenic when he killed his sister
January 10, 2011 | 3:21 PM ET

Prosecutors said Monday that they will not try to hold Maor Attar criminally responsible for killing his teenaged sister as last summer.

The Crown announced Monday that when the case returns to court in mid-March, it would accept experts' findings that Attar suffers from a severe mental illness.

Attar was arrested and charged with murder after the stabbing death of his 14-year-old sister, Shirel, at the family's Cote-St-Luc home last August.

But separate forensic psychological reports prepared for the Crown and the defence agreed that the 19-year-old Montrealer suffered from severe schizophrenia and recommended that he should be absolved of criminal responsibility.

"Both psychiatrists came to the same conclusion -- so it won't be contested that he's not criminally responsible," prosecutor Helene Di Salvo said.

Defence lawyer Daniel Lighter said he hopes the case will be resolved when it returns to court on Mar. 16, scheduled as a trial date before a Quebec Superior Court justice.

"At that time, the parties will produce evidence to the circumstances of the homicide as well as the mental illness that seems to have caused the incident to begin with," Lighter said.
Continued treatment

Attar has spent most of the past five months at the Pinel Psychiatric Hospital undergoing psychiatric evaluations, and he will likely remain there for an undetermined period.

"His treatment will continue, he's been in treatment for several months, and he'll stay there until doctors...determine that he's fit to be reintegrated into society," Lighter said.

"That could be in a month, that could be in a year, it could be in 10 years or theoretically it could be never. It depends on his mental health."

Last Aug. 9, family members returned to their home in suburban Cote St. Luc to find the victim's body punctured with multiple stab wounds.

Police spent hours searching for the suspect and found Attar several blocks from the crime scene.

Lighter said the parents are coping and are working to ensure their son gets proper care.

At the time of his arrest, Attar was only 18 and doctors were surprised that the disease had spread so rapidly and that his condition had deteriorated so quickly for someone that young, his lawyer said.

"He's not only mentally ill but he's severely mentally ill, to the point where even the psychiatrists were surprised (by) how ill he was and is," Lighter said.

"The good news is he does seem to be responding very well to the medication and to the therapy he's receiving," he said.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2011/01/10/attar-prosecutors-accept-findings.html#ixzz1AgbdC78a

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Attar not criminally responsible: judge
March 16, 2011


18-year-old Maor Attar, left, of Montreal is charged with first-degree murder in
the death of his sister Shirel, 14, centre. Their sister Karine is at right.
Photograph by: Phil Carpenter, Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL - Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau has ruled that Maor Attar is not criminally responsible for killing his younger sister in August.

Earlier Wednesday morning, the court heard that Attar was told by extraterrestrial voices to kill his younger sister when he hit her 40 times with a hammer and stabbed her 50 times with a knife.

Both the defence and the Crown had agreed that the 19-year-old should be found not criminally responsible for the Aug. 9 slaying.

Attar is to stay at the Philippe Pinel Institute until a panel of three experts at the hospital deem him fit to be released.

"It'll be some time before he'll be ready to be reintegrated" into the public, defence lawyer Daniel Lighter said.

Attar told two psychiatrists and the police that he had to kill Shirel Attar, 14, because she disturbed his concentration as he tried to listen to "the greys," the name he gave to the voices.

But he was unable to grasp that what he was doing was wrong until the slaying was done.

He then tried to kill himself by drinking paint thinner. Police found him wandering the streets alone and took him to Jewish General Hospital. From there, he was transferred to Pinel.

Attar's father broke down crying in Quebec Superior Court after hearing a resumé of the facts.

He and Attar's mother, who are divorced, had recognized their son's strange behaviour in the months leading up to the murder, and had tried to get him help.

Attar, who was 18 at the time, constantly stayed in his room, listening to music and playing on his computer. He never took drugs or drank alcohol, calling both disgusting.

His sister, the trial was told, was afraid of her brother. On the day of her death, alone in the Côte St. Luc home with him, she had locked herself in her bedroom. Her enraged brother, accusing her of being immature and loud, banged down the door to reach her.

Their mother discovered the grisly scene when she returned home at 6 p.m.

Attar sat handcuffed in the prisoner box Wednesday, his eyes closed and his head at times twitching. When he opened his eyes, they darted in all directions.

Lighter said medication and therapy have helped to stabilize his client.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Attar+criminally+responsible+judge/4449213/story.html#ixzz1GoejRT8A

Related: Murder suspect was schizophrenic: MD

To whom it may concern,

I would like to have my name removed from your article: http://www.justice4caylee.org/t12303-canada-shirel-attar-14-montreal-qc

Thank you for understanding,

Best,

Karine

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Sender e-mail address: karineattar@*********

I am so sorry for the tragedy that you and your family went through.

However, it will not help to remove these articles from this forum.  The horrific events are all over the internet and will never be removed. 

I pray you and your family are healing.

J4C POLICIES AND RULES: REMOVING NAMES FROM THIS WEBSITE:

"We get most of our information from Main Stream Media. You will find most posts with links to our stories. It is our policy here at J4C NOT to remove names from this website. Due to the overwhelming requests we've recently had to remove names and stories, we, the moderators and administrators have felt it necessary to make it very clear that we will not remove stories or rewrite history. Unfortunately, once something is on the internet, it stays on the internet. Even if we remove stories, names will still show up in searches and can be accessed through Google's Cache. There is also a website called the "Way Back Machine" where you can access webpages as they were days, years, and months ago.

It isn't that we do not have compassion for your situations, we are here to raise awareness and help where we can, in the fight against child abuse, exploitation and murder. It is not our intention to cause further harm to a child by leaving their names here, but you cannot unring a bell. Once it is out there, it is out there.

Furthermore, to the people that have threatened us with lawsuits, you may want to check the law. It is NOT illegal to publish a minor's name. Sometimes we will redact a name if the publishing of the name is causing even further distress to the child, but these are very rare cases, and I personally will speak to the parents or caregivers and make a decision based on the circumstances.

These are not easy decisions for us, and we do try to have compassion. I would like to point out that none of us can police the entire internet. As much as some people would like to erase the past, unfortunately it just isn't possible once it is published.

I'd like to add a special note to teenagers who think about running away. If you don't want your name plastered all over the internet and showing up on search engines, don't run away."

~Melissa~