Yazidi community leader charged with sexual assault; alleged victim claims bribe offered, threat made

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This article was published 31/10/2024 (661 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A prominent community advocate known for helping Yazidis seek refuge and settle in Winnipeg is accused of sexual assault and attempting to bribe the victim to get the criminal charge dropped.

The Winnipeg Police Service confirmed Hadji Hesso, who oversees the Yazidi Association of Manitoba, was charged with one count of sexual assault on Oct. 4.

Hesso has made a name for himself as a community leader who has raised awareness about the Kurdish religious minority group being targeted by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in their homeland since the genocide against Yazidis began in 2014.

Hesso had known the victim for about a decade, ever since she and her family arrived in Canada from Iraq, court was told when Hesso applied for bail on Oct. 18.

The sexual assaults are alleged to have occurred last July and August during association activities involving both Hesso and the alleged victim, with Hesso allegedly sexually touching and groping the woman repeatedly, without her consent.

The woman provided a statement to police on Oct. 4 and officers arrested him the same day.

Police released Hesso on an undertaking that included a condition he have no direct or indirect contact with the alleged victim.

Hesso is accused of breaching the undertaking that same day after allegedly sending a cousin to the woman’s home and offering her a bribe to drop the sexual assault charge, Crown attorney Larissa Campbell told provincial court Judge Cynthia Devine.

The cousin “also stated that if she didn’t accept the bribe, police would seek medical assistance to show she wasn’t a virgin and tarnish her reputation in the Yazidi community,” Campbell alleged.

The woman reported the alleged incident to police and Hesso was rearrested Oct. 17.

Devine denied Hesso bail, saying she wasn’t satisfied he would comply with conditions he not contact the woman if released.

“This is a very difficult case,” Devine said. “The Yazidi people were targeted and subject to genocide, in some ways, by ISIS in Iraq and women, in particular, were brutalized.”

Devine said it was “very troubling” that Hesso is alleged to have “done something to this young woman that is similar to what she and other women may have experienced back in Iraq.”

Hesso appeared for a bail review before King’s Bench Justice Brian Bowman Monday and was again denied release.

“My client strongly denies the allegations against him as false,” Hesso’s lawyer, Alex Steigerwald, said in a text message. “He is eager to contest these allegations in court at the earliest opportunity, as he is confident the court will find he has done nothing wrong.”

He was listed as a member of the Ethnocultural Council of Manitoba’s board of directors, but appears to have been removed from its website. The Free Press has asked the council for comment.

— with files by Erik Pindera and Maggie Macintosh

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca