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Anti-Jewish 'bomber' set free
An Enfield rabbi whose family was at the centre of an anti-semitic hate campaign has hit out at the legal system which allowed his persecutor to walk free from court.
Mentally ill Riaz Burahee, 25, made more than 90 intimidating phone calls to 15 victims and threatened to blow up the Enfield and Winchmore Hill Synagogue, causing the building to be evacuated.
He was sentenced to a three-year community rehabilitation order on condition he receives further psychiatric treatment and attends Enfield Community Drug and Alcohol Services to treat his cannabis problem.
Following the court case, Rabbi Levi Brackman, based at the synagogue in Wellington Road, said: “This was a missed opportunity to send out a signal to people that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable in British society, and I am very disappointed indeed.
“He did not even apologise fully to the people he did this to. He rang up my wife at home and said some awful things to her and that he was going to blow up my synagogue.
| "He rang up my wife at home and said some awful things to her and that he was going to blow up my synagogue." | | Rabbi Levi Brackman |
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“I understand that he put forward the defence of diminished responsibility, and if he has serious psychosis, then I have sympathy for him, but this sends out all the wrong signals that a person can persecute huge sections of the Jewish community.”
Burahee, of St Malo Avenue, Edmonton, threatened to rape women and children during his three-day hate campaign between March 22 and March 24 last year.
Passing sentence, Judge Diane Faber took into account the defendant’s mental illness and the fact his condition has improved following treatment.
She told Burahee: “It is plain from these reports you committed all these offences while mentally ill, suffering symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and experiencing delusions of persecution by Jewish people.”
The judge also took into account his lack of previous convictions for violence and the fact he has no links with terrorist groups.
Defending, Simon Wilshire said the defendant’s condition was ‘manageable and treatable within the community’.
“He has some strongly-held beliefs, but he regrets the effect of the telephone calls and his words,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the Community Safety Trust, which helped the police with their investigation, said: “We are disappointed that such serious offences did not attract a custodial sentence.”
Burahee admitted one charge of communicating false information about a bomb, five of racially aggravated harassment causing fear of violence and four of racially aggravated harassment at Wood Green Crown Court.
7:23am Friday 8th April 2005
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