KITCHENER — He said he wanted a bottle of water. A cold bottle of water. He insisted.
And when his wife, the mother of his three young children, went to fetch it for him from the fridge, he grabbed her from behind. Wielding a knife, Nabil Almousa threw his wife to the floor, pinned her arms and legs, and went at her eyelids with its seven-inch blade.

By the time he got up again, there were seven cuts and slices — and so much blood that a woman who later saw her thought it must be a prank.

“There,” Almousa told her. “You can leave now.”

Almost a year later, as she weighs whether or not to have plastic surgery, she said she is partly to blame for own disfigurement because she said something to make him mad.

But the judge who heard the facts yesterday — about the knife attack and the chain of events building up to it — was having none of that.



“I want you to understand this,” said Justice Michael Epstein, his voice rising as he addressed Almousa, 34, in the prisoner’s dock. “She bears no responsibility.”
The justice called the case one of the worst cases of domestic violence he has even seen.
Court heard the couple met in Jordan, bucking their Muslim tradition of arranged marriages after she caught his eye while working in a store.

“This is a relationship that began simply with love,” said defence lawyer Stephanie Krug.
They came to Canada as refugees in 2007 and quickly had three kids, all still under the age of five.
She stayed home in Waterloo to mind the family. He worked long hours to support it, first in construction and then at a Guelph factory.

Neighbours in their complex noticed bruises and urged her to go to police, but she refused even after admitting her husband hit her. But when Almousa came home drunk one night at 4 a.m., woke her up and punched her in the face, they took that step themselves. He was charged, despite her insistence that it was just an accident, and released on bail with terms to live with a surety and stay completely away from his wife.
Almousa moved instead to a motel on Victoria St. in Kitchener, where she visited him with the children almost every day in violation of the court order.

On a Saturday in early June, the family went to a mosque in Waterloo and made plans to take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese’s once Almousa had changed at the motel. It was there, while the children waited in the car, that he insisted she get him water from the fridge and pounced when she obliged.

“It appeared as though the accused was attempting to cut out the victim’s eyes,” prosecutor Cynthia Jennison said of the attack. “The victim cried and begged for her life while the accused said nothing.”
Almousa left her bleeding profusely and sped away in the car. She went for help, this time telling authorities he had done it.

There was no explanation offered on why he targeted her eyelids.

But in an interview with police, Almousa said he was angry he hadn’t been able to go home or see his children, and because his wife didn’t tell him police had been around. Krug said he also believed she was cheating on him and was “completely overtaken by jealousy and anger.”

Epstein sentenced Almousa to the equivalent of four years in prison. With credit for dead time, he has just over three years left to serve. According to Krug, he will be deported to Jordan after doing two-thirds of that time.

His wife was in court as he pleaded guilty to assault, aggravated assault and several counts of breaching court orders, but she couldn’t stay because the children were fussing. Jennison said she plans to return to Jordan as well, though she won’t reconcile with Almousa, and is feeling most acutely “the weight of being alone.”

A stocky man with a shaved head, Almousa wanted it known that he is a hard-working family man.
“I say sorry for what I did,” he told the court.