Father guilty of genital excision

An Ethiopian immigrant was convicted of aggravated battery and cruelty to children for the genital excision of his 2-year-old daughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in what was believed to be the first such criminal case in the United States.

Prosecutors in Lawrenceville said Khalid Adem, 30, used scissors to remove his daughter’s clitoris in his family’s Atlanta-area apartment in 2001. The child’s mother, Fortunate Adem, said she did not discover the excision until more than a year later.

Adem, who had no criminal record, could have been sentenced to up to 40 years in prison. He held his face in his hands and wept loudly after the jury’s verdict was read.