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A 35-year-old shopkeeper and two of his employees were arrested for having allegedly chased down and tied up a shoplifter, keeping him captive in a delivery truck until police arrived. Chen, Jie Chen, 21, and Qing Li, 40, were charged with assault, forcible confinement, carrying a concealed weapon and kidnapping. The kidnapping charge has been dropped.

On Aug. 17, Anthony Bennett was sentenced to 30 days in prison after having pleaded guilty to stealing 10 plants from Chen's Lucky Moose Food Mart and. It’s shocking to hear, however, that the store owner is put in the position of committing the crime, when, in reality, he was merely trying to protect himself and his business.

Islam imposes that a thief’s hand should be cut, but such punishment is never inflicted when there is the slightest doubt that the thief was impelled to crime by hunger. It can only be applied if goods stolen are over a set value and consideration is given to whether this is a first offence or the person is a habitual thief. And what exactly did the thief steal? Ten plants. That’s right folks, he stole plants. Not food, not brand name clothes, not an LCD TV, but plants.

Apparently, under the criminal code, a property owner can only arrest someone if they're caught committing a crime, Peter Lindsay, Chen’s lawyer, explained. Chen didn't catch Bennett red-handed, but the theft was captured on surveillance camera and Chen caught Bennett nearly an hour later when he returned to Lucky Moose.

"In China, if this happened, a lot of people in the area would help, plus the police would arrive immediately," Chen said in Mandarin.

"The thief would be on trial, not the store owner."

What do you think?

SOURCE: Toronto Star --http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/720812--put-thief-not-me-on-trial-grocer-says



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Comments

librarycard
11/16/2009 10:36am

Well what do you think??
I don't get what you're trying to say with this article.
:/

Reply



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