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Day said Hanan Ghaith "has much to gain" if a jury convicts her father. Hanan wants to remain in the U.S., and Day added "it's going to be a lot easier with her dad out of the way, and that's going to be the result - perhaps - of this trial."
Hanan Ghaith, 19, testifies Wednesday of the alleged abuse she received from her father, Fawaz M. Ghaith.
Fawaz M. Ghaith's lawyers claim police targeted the Jordanian-American truck driver due to his Middle Eastern descent.
Prosecutors, however, say officers arrested him because he threatened to kill four people while trying to force his adult teenage daughter from Bay County back to his native Jordan.
A jury in 18th Circuit Court heard both sides on Wednesday, as a trial got under way for Ghaith, 47, accused of two counts of extortion in connection with threats he allegedly made on Sept. 2, 2008.
"If Fawaz's name wasn't Fawaz - if Fawaz's name was Jeff, and we had this same factual situation - would we be here in this situation?" Jeffrey M. Day, one of two lawyers representing Ghaith, asked jurors in his opening statement.
Bay County Assistant Prosecutor Richard I. Dresser alleges Ghaith threatened to kill 18-year-old Hanan Ghaith, her mother and Hanan's grandparents in a Sept. 2, 2008, phone call to the grandparents' home in Gibson Township.
Dresser wants to introduce testimony from Hanan Ghaith, now 19, that her father physically abused her repeatedly when she lived with him in Jordan.
Hanan Ghaith later moved to the U.S. to live with her grandparents in Gibson Township. Police said Hanan Ghaith told her grandparents that her uncle, back in Jordan, had beaten her with a belt for speaking with boys via a cell phone.
Hanan Ghaith appeared in court Wednesday, but Circuit Judge William Caprathe required her to testify outside the presence of the jury, explaining he wanted to hear the woman's testimony before deciding whether to let the jury hear it.
Hanan Ghaith testified that while she lived in Jordan, her father beat her a number of times - with a wooden stick, a slipper and his hands - for various reasons.
In his opening statement Wednesday, Jeffrey Day, a Bay City lawyer, told jurors Fawaz Ghaith will testify he doesn't try to control his daughter or wife, but that he treats them with great respect.
"He's going to tell you that his (four) children are the most important thing in his life," Day said. "They remain so, and I suspect he'll tell you, very emotionally, that he would never consider harming any of them."
With the jury out of the courtroom, Dresser told the judge that such statements by Day in front of jurors should entitle Dresser to introduce "other acts of violence between the defendant and his daughter, and his wife."
Caprathe then had Hanan Ghaith testify, and also asked to review a transcript of Day's opening statement, before deciding whether to allow Hanan's testimony about prior alleged beatings by her father.
The judge could issue his decision today - when the trial resumes - and said he expects jurors to begin deliberations Friday.
Hanan Ghaith's grandmother, 65-year-old Marian Breasbois of Gibson Township, testified Fawaz Ghaith threatened to kill her and her husband if Marian Breasbois didn't let him take his daughter back to Jordan.
Breasbois also said Fawaz Ghaith - a dual citizen of Jordan and the U.S. - would kill Hanan Ghaith if she didn't agree to return to Jordan.
Michigan State Police arrested Ghaith on Sept. 2 after he arrived at the Breasbois home at 2897 W. Brown Road.
Day said Hanan Ghaith "has much to gain" if a jury convicts her father. Hanan wants to remain in the U.S., and Day added "it's going to be a lot easier with her dad out of the way, and that's going to be the result - perhaps - of this trial."
Marian Breasbois testified Hanan Ghaith would get mad after speaking to her father by phone while Hanan stayed at the Breasbois home.
"I'd hear her tell him 'You can't make me go (to Jordan). I'm too old. I'm old enough to stay here,'" Breasbois said.
Story here.
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