Sect members arrested after hospital standoff over baby

Parents arrested after hospital standoff over baby

The fugitive mother of a sick infant was arrested at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children yesterday, as her continued refusal to hand over her child prompted officials to take the parents into custody and admit the child to hospital as a ward of the state.

The erratic behaviour of the 22-year-old woman first made headlines across Toronto last week, as police circulated an urgent advisory saying they were looking for the woman and her malnourished nine-month-old. But the surprising scope of the story became clear only during developments yesterday.

After the couple were arrested during their second run-in with hospital authorities, it emerged that both parents belong to a religious sect that doesn’t believe in institutionalized medicine and which claims that government agents have no authority over its members.

“She’s not an evil person and she’s not a bad mother,” her spiritual leader, who goes by the title Grand Sheik Brother Kudjo Sut Tekh El, explained late yesterday afternoon while waiting outside a downtown police station for the couple to be booked. Police have signalled they are planning to lay obstruction charges against the couple.

Wearing a burgundy fez, a matching robe and dreadlocks, Mr. Sut Tekh El explained he knew the parents well and was familiar with everything that had led to the arrest.

According to him, the baby has eczema and severe food allergies, which has left him very skinny. But “we have the rights as Moorish-Americans not to succumb to institutionalized ways of healing ourselves,” Mr. Sut Tekh El said. He said members of his sect avoid hospitals and pharmaceutical drugs in favour of natural remedies for all ailments, including cancer.

The Canadian government has no jurisdiction over Moorish-Americans, the religious leader argued, adding the baby should not have been seized by the Children’s Aid Society. “It basically infringes on his nationality,” he said.

For decades, the U.S.-based Nation of Moorish-Americans has espoused that, thanks to a historic treaty, millions of black Americans are actually a divine and sovereign people, and also citizens of Morocco. The Canadian chapter led by Mr. Sut Tekh El is relatively new, but he said he has about 30 members.
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On Wednesday, medical staff at the Hospital for Sick Children raised concerns about malnutrition as they examined the infant. The baby weighed only 11 pounds – close to a newborn’s weight – at the time of the visit.

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