Pakistani cleric stood down for conducting marriage of child bride
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Version 0 of 1. The Islamic cleric who allegedly conducted a marriage between a child bride and an adult man has been stood down by his local mosque and had his visa sponsorship revoked. Pakistani national Riaz Tasawar, 35, was this week arrested and charged with solemnisation of a marriage by an unauthorised person. The marriage was allegedly between a 12-year-old girl and a 26-year-old man in NSW’s Hunter region in 2013. Police say the man became involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with the girl and have charged him with 25 counts of sexual intercourse with a child between 10 and 14 years of age. The Islamic Centre of Newcastle, the mosque where Tasawar was the resident Imam, on Wednesday said it had severed ties with the man. “His employment has been dismissed and he’s not allowed to come to the mosque,” the centre’s president, Yunus Kara, said. “The centre has nothing to do with him,” he said, adding that the mosque’s management had decided to withdraw its sponsorship visa for the Pakistani cleric. He stressed the issue had been widely condemned by Australia’s Muslim community as an “un-Islamic” act. Kara said he was concerned about the girl at the centre of the alleged marriage. Meanwhile, the 61-year-old father of the girl was on Wednesday charged with procuring a child for unlawful sexual activity and being an accessory before the fact to sexual intercourse with a person between 10 and 14 years of age. He appeared before Raymond Terrace local court, where his bail was formally refused. The man is due to face Newcastle local court on April 9. A bail application for the 26-year-old man was on Wednesday adjourned at Sydney’s Burwood local court until February 24. |