CANADA
Toronto Star
By: Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, Published on Wed Sep 10 2014
MONTREAL—Police believed leading members of the radical Jewish sect Lev Tahor were involved in human trafficking and forgery when officers raided their Ontario homes last January, court documents reveal.
Released to the Toronto Star and other media Wednesday, the set of documents, called an Information to Obtain, were used by the Sûreté du Québec to seek a search warrant, following allegations that people in the 200-member cloistered community were being held and moved against their will.
Police were seeking credit cards, financial documents, travel documents, power-of-attorney forms, marriage certificates, coupons to obtain food and medical prescriptions.
The allegations in the document have not been tested in court.
The raid, carried only out after Lev Tahor members had fled their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, north of Montreal, was prompted by interviews with several community members, notably Adam Brudzewsky.
Brudzewsky fled in 2012 with the help of a local Orthodox rabbi, along with his pregnant wife, after he questioned edicts of the group’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, who reportedly runs Lev Tahor with iron discipline.
Documents say Brudzewsky told police he was instructed to hit children to enforce discipline in the community-run school and that children were married off before the legal age of 16.
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