Yasmin Nakhuda says she believes she will have a good chance of regaining custody of Darwin -- the primate affectionately known as the ‘Ikea monkey’ -- when she has her day in court Jan. 31.
“I believe we have a very strong case,” Nakhuda said, speaking on CP24 Tuesday afternoon.
She said she believes the Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary where Darwin currently lives has accused her in court documents of abusing the animal as part of a last-ditch effort to discredit her and hang on to the monkey.
“The reason for the very mean and unfair allegations is that when we went into discovery on Jan. 9, the Toronto Animal Services rescue officers basically came forward and admitted that I was coerced to sign over Darwin,” Nakhuda said. “The only way for them (the sanctuary) to keep Darwin is by saying I abused him, so that’s where they’re coming from.”
She called the facility more of a “farm” than a sanctuary and said allegations that she and her children had hit the creature with a wooden spoon and strangled him were upsetting.
“When I read the allegations I was stupefied,” Nakhuda said. “I became amused because they were so frivolous and vexatious that it didn’t look like there was any basis for any of them. Then I started getting angry, especially when I read the portion that alleged my children were abusing the monkey and hitting him in the face using a spoon.
“It really made me upset that they would stoop so low to accuse my children, innocent parties of things that are so cruel.”
Nakhuda said she sometimes disciplined the monkey if he nipped by holding him in the back of the neck so that he would go limp and then tapping him on the nose. But she denied that the action amounted to strangling.
“I think that’s what they’re talking about when they say strangulation,” Nakhuda said. “That’s really shocking. I’ve actually looked up the word ‘strangulation’ in the dictionary. Strangulation is like choking, preventing you from breathing. I don’t think that was the case, of us strangulating Darwin at all.”
Nakhuda also said she would move to try and have the sanctuary’s license taken away.
“We have a petition served in the township of Brock opposing the licensing of the sanctuary,” Nakhuda said. “We are going to move very strongly forward… to make sure that Darwin comes home and that the sanctuary or the farm does not get a license.
Darwin came to international attention when he was found wandering the parking lot of an Ikea at Leslie Street and Sheppard Avenue wearing a faux shearling coat Dec. 9 after escaping from the car where he had been left. He was seized by Toronto Animal Services and Nakhuda was asked to sign him over to their custody. It is illegal to keep a monkey as a pet in Toronto.
A lawyer for Story Book Farms was out of town and could not be reached for comment.
