Gordon: Monis had a history of prior multiple charges for sexual assault arising from his so-called spiritual healing practice. Some years ago, you published pioneering research into drug-facilitated sex assault, which you pointed out to be a crime of those who were otherwise integrated into the community or socially successful professionals, be they colleagues, business owners, and even health care professionals. What in your opinion motivated his record of violence?
Welner: Sexual assault in which an offender gains access to victims under false pretense is antisocial behavior perpetrated under cover of law-abiding legitimacy. It differs from those assaulters who dispense with ruses to entrap prospective victims and simply attack or rape targets with weapons or brute force to restrain them. But it is rape nonetheless, and the victim no less violated. The conviction of Jerry Sandusky and allegations against Bill Cosby (if true) illustrate that people can be sexual predators even as they are role models to others.
Sex assault investigation and disposition remains a complex problem, especially when evidence can be eliminated. An articulate perpetrator of bearing can explain away an encounter, particularly when he has a wife or otherwise submissive partner to vouch for his alibi. Alleged victims can be opportunistic and when not, may still be dissuaded by the consequences of their exposure. Even those who stomach the fortitude to endure the skepticism and proving grounds for sex assault complaints are sometimes crushed by prosecutorial decision-making that essentially protects a seemingly respected perpetrator. One such example is the college football star Jameis Winston, who only this week again eluded discipline even as he testified that he interpreted “moaning” as consent.
Avoiding prosecution, for those who are good talkers and have clever modus operandi, proves to facilitate their re-offense. High degrees of recidivism may be seen in such perpetrators. And so Monis’ history of sexual assault may not only reflect his expression of his fantasy life, but an entitlement borne of his success in avoiding accountability for violating others.
Gordon: We have witnessed many spectacular honor killings that have occurred in the West, including America. Do you consider Monis’ and Droudis’ crime in that category and why not?
Welner: Wife burning is too common a crime among Muslims to be dismissed as a by-product of mental instability. It is a common misconception that femicide occurs in Muslim cultures because of actual or perceived dishonor, whatever non-Muslims feel about its criminality. However, the “honor killing” explanation is no different from any defense of justifiability – the claim does not make it fact.
Femicide is far more a manifestation of how women are devalued in many Muslim cultures, especially in countries whose legal systems protect perpetrators who claim “honor killing” as a motive. The prevalence of femicide in Muslim societies is in direct relationship to societal attitudes that the lives of women do not matter. In reality, femicide among Muslim households is no more related to “honor” motives than it is the “exploding stove” that is implicated in femicides in which Muslim men cover murders of their wives as accidents. The silence of the international feminist movement to this reality (as well as on human trafficking) illustrates the cowardice of its core.
What is notable about this case, however, is the partnership of a dominant ex-husband with his Muslim-convert girlfriend (Droudis was born Anastasia Droudis, and converted from the Greek-Orthodox church). Just as Monis was a "spiritual advisor" able enough to lure women to being vulnerable to be preyed upon, so he was capable of seducing a recent convert in the form of her absolute loyalty to him to violent criminality toward a rival. That Droudis defends Monis now is testament to her allegiance to him. That Droudis, a woman of no remarkable violent criminality, was implicated as the prime mover in the femicide speaks to Sheikh Monis’ capacity to manipulate.
Charismatic and highly publicized offenders do quite well in attracting females – sometimes especially after they have become notorious. This includes even rapist murderers, in my experience. The Droudis-Monis relationship, after his publicized arrests for highly insensitive letters to the families of fallen Australian servicemen, speaks to this area of penologic and forensic interest.
Read the full article here.
Read past interviews with Jerry Gordon here.
