US: Recently-arrived Afghan refugee detained for sexual assault in Wisconsin

The US on February 9 arrested recently arrived Afghan migrant in Wausau, the Western District of Wisconsin, US, over charges of sexual assault crime with a woman, using coercion, the Wausau Police Department said in a press release on February 9, Wednesday. Afghan citizen Matiullah Matie, 40, was charged with 4th-degree sexual assault [Class A Misdemeanour] count for engaging in a sexual act alleging the use of force with the victim. The Afghan national was booked at the Marathon County Jail after an investigation was launched by the police, and was later released on a signature bond. He had become known locally as he had served as a liaison between new Afghan arrivals in Washington and Marathon County, in central Wisconsin. 

“The victim, a Wausau resident, reported she was assaulted by Matie while in a vehicle on Wausau’s northeast side. The victim was identified as an acquaintance and was assisting Matie and his family in refugee resettlement,” the Wausau Police Department in the city of Wisconsin said. 

Afghan national faces $10,000 fine and nine months in jail

Rep. Tom Tiffany, Wisconsin, had earlier warned the NGOs working to settle Afghan evacuees in the United States without thorough background checks to be on the lookout for misconduct and other problems. Wisconsin police stated that they received a complaint of fourth-degree sexual assault against Matie, and if convicted he will face up to a $10,000 fine and nine months in jail. Wisconsin Public Radio, raised the issue of the undocumented Afghan resettlement in the state of Wisconsin after the Afghan national was arrested on rape charges.

The accused and his family had arrived in Wausau at the end of December, during the frantic evacuation of the Afghan refugees led by the Biden administration. The woman victim was an acquaintance of Matie’s, and the accused had given her the pretext of “helping her family with refugee resettlement services.” 

This wouldn’t be the first that the Afghan nationals were convicted of serious crimes in the US, as earlier in September an Afghan national named Bahrullah Noori, 20, was charged with three counts of engaging in a sexual act and one count alleging the use of force with the victims who had not attained the age of 16 years and were at least four years younger than the defendant. Noori was charged at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, according to a court indictment document released by the US Department of Justice’s Attorney’s Office of Western District of Wisconsin. 

Another Afghan national Mohammad Haroon Imaad, 32, was charged with assaulting his spouse by strangling and suffocating her in a harrowing sexual assault crime that occurred on September 7, 2021. Noori and Imaad are both detained at the Dane County Jail and were convicted by US Magistrate Judge Stephen L. Crocker. They incurred the penalty of 30 years sentence, a maximum of life in federal prison on the charges alleging use of force, and a maximum penalty of 15 years on the other two charges. Imaad faced a maximum penalty of 10 years. The investigation was opened by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Fort McCoy Police Department.