A man told a judge he was entitled to carry a 12cm hunting knife in his pocket because the Qur’an said he should “keep his weapons with [him]”.
He also told the court he needed the knife to cut his pizza.
Mohammad Shahin Maghsoudi was stopped by police in February 2023 because of his driving. The constable who pulled him over noticed “a knife protruding from Mr Maghsoudi’s trouser pocket”.
Maghsoudi was told to put the knife on the bonnet, which he did.
He then told the constable and another officer present that “his religion required him to carry a weapon for self-defence”.
Maghsoudi represented himself at a District Court trial in 2024, with assistance from a McKenzie friend, where the issue was whether he had a “reasonable excuse” to carry the knife.
He claimed he had it for religious purposes and because he was on his way to get lunch and was going to use it to cut pizza.
It’s an offence to possess any knife, in any public place, without reasonable excuse.
The trial judge found Maghsoudi didn’t have a reasonable excuse and he was convicted and ordered to appear for sentence if called upon within six months.
Maghsoudi appealed his conviction and sentence to the High Court, which recently published its judgment.
That decision outlined Maghsoudi’s defence at trial, explaining he cross-examined police officers to the effect he was entitled to arm himself because police are armed.
In his evidence, Maghsoudi said his reasons for carrying the knife were two-fold.
The first was that he was “on his way to lunch” and the knife was a “pizza knife” for “cutting pizza”.
The other reason, he said, was the Qur’an required him to carry a knife, citing 4:102, “keep your weapons with you, always keep your weapons with you”.
The judgment said Judge Clare Bennett, who presided over the judge-alone trial, noted Maghsoudi’s evidence “was at times difficult to follow”.
While he “presented as an intelligent man, he had difficulty staying on task”.
She rejected his evidence that the knife was for use, or had been used, “in connection with pizza”.
“There was no evidence that Mr Maghsoudi had indeed purchased pizza, or was eating pizza,” the judge said.
She also rejected the existence of a reasonable excuse based on religious grounds.
The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 states: “Every person has the right to manifest that person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, or teaching, either individually or in community with others, and either in public or in private.”
However, the judge didn’t think that was at play in Maghsoudi’s knife-carrying pursuits.
“It was not expressly articulated by Mr Maghsoudi that he was claiming a religious exception, such as in the case of a Sikh carrying a kirpan,” she said.
A kirpan is a ceremonial sword or dagger carried by baptised Sikhs for religious purposes.
In written submissions, a larger portion of the Qur’an was referred to, which included other references to being armed, including while in prayer.
However, the judge said this passage was not referred to in his evidence, and even if Maghsoudi had been relying on that particular portion of the Qur’an, she found that it did not provide him with a reasonable excuse to carry a knife in the circumstances of the case.
The judge found the charge of possession of a knife without reasonable excuse proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Maghsoudi appealed his conviction and sentence on “wide-ranging grounds”, the High Court judgment said.
Much of these involved sovereign citizen-type arguments.
He said the courts had no jurisdiction over him, but “the common law” did; the laws did not apply to him as he did not “consent” to their application; and the offence provision was ineffective because he is a “living man”, not a trust.
He also said he committed no offence as the police had stolen the knife from him and he would sue them for theft.
The High Court judge told him at the hearing that “arguments of this nature are untenable”.
Justice Mathew Downs said there was nothing to suggest the trial judge had erred in her assessment of the “pizza-based excuse”, for which Maghsoudi’s evidence had been “broad” and “bereft of detail”.
“In any event, the knife is clearly a hunting knife, not an item of cutlery. No one could think otherwise given the exhibit.”
On the topic of carrying the knife for religious purposes, Justice Downs also agreed with the trial judge.
“The carrier would need to believe, as a matter of religion, that they needed to carry a knife in the circumstances in question, and carriage of the knife would need to reflect that belief in those circumstances,” he said.
“So, carrying a knife for another reason – say, to use it as weapon – or carrying a knife absent a belief that was required as matter of religion in the circumstances, would not assist a defendant in this context.”
Justice Downs noted Maghsoudi’s testimony didn’t reveal a particular religious affiliation, rather just a general belief in God, and he did not say he was carrying the knife to manifest a religious belief.
“Rather, Mr Maghsoudi said carriage of a knife could be justified by reference to scriptural texts: the Bible, the Qur’an, and Torah.”
Justice Downs also said religious justification based on an open-ended notion of self-defence would not accord with the Crimes Act.
The appeal was dismissed.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.