Pictured above -- the one on the left -- is 58-year-old Satrajpal Singh Rai, a resident of Halifax NS, who seems to have problems with mind-altering substances and (perhaps) something of an Oedipus complex. He was convicted this week of attempting to murder his elderly mother by attacking her with a machete.
Mr Rai was held in custody since he was arrested just inside the door of a South Park Street apartment on 3 April 2024. When apprehanded shortly after midnight, he still had the machete in his hands, and his 80-year-old mother was on the hallway floor, covered in blood. Harbhajan Rai was so badly injured that responding officers at first thought she was dead.
Mr Rai was charged with attempted murder, which, like murder requires a specific intent to kill. At his trial last year, the accused testified at trial last year that he was too impaired by cocaine and cannabis to be able to form that intent. Rather unusual for someone who was 56 years old at the time.
He conceded that he attacked his mother but said that at the time, he thought he was fending off a demonic being or entity that wanted to hurt him. He hadn't slept in three days, he said, and was lying on his mother’s bed when he heard voices outside the bedroom. When he rolled over, he saw the entity standing beside him holding a machete.
But wait (as Vince Offer used to say), it gets better [or worse. Ed.] He said the entity had hair like Medusa, reptilian skin and yellow fangs for teeth. No wonder he didn’t recognize it was his mother! Mr Rai said the entity asked him a series of questions and he could not make out who it was. Fearing for his life, he said he grabbed the machete and began swinging.
He recalled moving into the hallway, falling down and scrambling to get up in fear that he would be killed. He told the court that he was yelling for help and trying to get to the door. He indicated that he was able to open the door, but that it started to swing closed. He then observed the police burst through the door.
On cross-examination, Mr Rai admitted that as he swung the machete at the entity, which he now knows was his mother, he said, "Just die!" over and over again, like the alien in Independence Day. The Crown introduced evidence that about half an-hour before the assault, Mr Rai sent a text to his ex-wife in Dartmouth that said, "Pray for me and my mother." At trial, he swore that the text did not have a violent meaning but was just a request to pray that he and his mother would get through the worst of her schizophrenic conditions.
Judge Chris Manning said, "Mr Rai is indeed fortunate that the police arrived no later than they did, and a brilliant trauma team was assembled to save Mrs Rai’s life," said Hizzoner. The accused was the primary caregiver for his mother, who suffers from dementia, schizophrenia and memory loss. "She was the victim of a horrendous, brutal attack committed by her son...in the apartment that they shared. He utilized a machete, and the savagery and force ...resulted in massive injuries, including deep lacerations to her head and body, fractured bones, loss of teeth, and fingers were cut from her hands."
The judge stopped just short of calling bullshit on Mr Rai's defence, and found the drug-addled Sikh guilty of attempted murder, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. He was sentenced only on the attempted murder charge. Mr Rai expressed remorse for his actions in his presentence report and in his plea to the court. The judge thought a sentence of 18-years in prison sentence would adequately address denunciation and deterrence while not losing sight of the possibility of rehabilitation. [sic!]
He deducted 1203 days as credit for remand time, leaving Mr Rai with a net sentence of about 14 years and 8.5 months before he can become, once again, the kind of citizen (or at least resident) which the Liberal government thinks make Canada a better place. As Emperor Trudeau II famously said, "Diversity is our strength".
If she's lucky, Mrs Rai will be 96 when her son gets out. No worries until then.
In the meantime, our friend Johnny Canuck would like to know: How did a drug-user like Mr Singh Rai and his aged and infirm mother get into Canada? As a "temporary foreign student" perhaps? Or a "temporary foreign worker"? Or maybe a "refugee" or asylum-seeker? How long have these parasites been in Canuckistan? Who supports them? No prizes for guessing the answer to the last question.
