Judge throws out historic female genital mutilation case, calls feds ‘vindictive’
A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the nation’s first female genital mutilation case, delivering a major blow to the prosecution and FGM survivors who had hoped the Detroit case would help end a practice that is still performed on millions of girls worldwide.
In dismissing the four-year-old case, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman concluded the prosecution was vindictive in seeking new charges against the accused, who had previously convinced the judge to declare the federal FGM ban as unconstitutional.
