Musab A-Noor, accused of killing his two sisters on Friday night, missed his third appearance in Ottawa’s mental health court on Wednesday because he has been admitted to hospital.

A-Noor, 29, was transported to hospital after guards at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre had concerns about his state of mind. 

He is charged with first- and second-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of his sisters Nasiba, 32, and Asma, 29.

More than 1,500 mourners attended their funeral on Sunday. The sisters were remembered as “influential and inspiring.”

Their brother was arrested by a set of railroad tracks not far from the McCarthy Road home where police found the bodies of the slain sisters. He was initially taken into custody under the Mental Health Act for his own safety. He remains at the hospital, where he has met with a psychiatrist. 

His next scheduled appearance in mental health court is Friday, where a court-appointed psychiatrist will be assigned to assess the accused killer. 

The accused also missed a court appearance on Sunday because he refused to leave his jail cell.

His defence lawyer, Samir Adam, told the Citizen he has concerns about his client’s mental health.

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The prized RCMP agent who infiltrated an ISIL network in Ottawa says he got into the spy business by accident.

It was January 2011, and Abdullah Milton was in Ottawa for the first time.

“I was a tourist,” the Muslim convert revealed in a March 2014 interview with RCMP investigators.

His version of events has gone untold until now.

Milton took pictures of Parliament Hill and the Saudi embassy, then posted them on Facebook. He claimed in the interview that CSIS paid him a visit after his posts were a deemed a “red flag.”

Milton, originally from New Brunswick, said he told CSIS agents he was just posting tourist pictures of Parliament Hill and that he had Saudi friends and had posted the embassy photos for them to see.

The way Milton told it, that visit from CSIS agents launched his career as an asset for the spy agency.

Milton’s version of how he became a CSIS asset is revealed in the 2014 RCMP interview. His name had come up during an RCMP terrorism investigation targeting Ottawa’s Aswo Peshdary, and when the Mounties moved to expand their probe to include his friend, a top CSIS official let them in on a secret: The man the RCMP wanted to target was actually a CSIS asset.

CSIS then cut its ties with Milton and handed him over to the RCMP in March 2014.

In one of his first interviews with the national police force, Milton said he supplied CSIS with intelligence because he was “just trying to help … and, you know, try to stop possible attacks, and that kind of thing.”

When the Mounties learned that their fresh target was actually a CSIS asset, they put him to work as a paid agent straight away. The Citizen has confirmed the RCMP have so far paid Milton at least $800,000 for befriending and spying on suspected members of an ISIL network in Ottawa. The Mounties paid him in cash and it is not known whether Milton declared the income and paid taxes on it.

The paid agent’s work is credited for convictions against terror twins Ashton and Carlos Larmond, and Suliman Mohamed. Their rapid descent into Islamic extremism ended in August when they admitted plotting to leave the country to join ISIL. Ashton Larmond pleaded guilty to instructing a person to carry out a terrorist activity, while his brother, Carlos, pleaded guilty to attempting to leave Canada to commit terrorist acts. Mohamed admitted to conspiring with the Larmonds and others to carry out a terrorist activity. The sentencing judge said he was grateful that the RCMP were always one step ahead of the “would-be evildoers.”

Carlos and Ashton Larmond were both convicted of terrorism offences.

Suliman Mohamed was also convicted of terrorism offences.

The continuing criminal case against accused terrorist recruiter and financier Awso Peshdary, one of the trio’s alleged co-conspirators, meanwhile, is also anchored in the agent’s spy work.

In fact, Abdullah Milton has been spying on Peshdary for years. 

Awso Peshdary, 26, is charged in an alleged terrorism conspiracy in support of the Islamic State.
Peshdary is alleged to have financed other young men’s travel to join the Islamic State. (Greg Banning/Ottawa Citizen)

He first started keeping an eye on Peshdary back in 2011, when they worked the graveyard shift together at Walmart.

“Anything he would say to me that, you know, of concern or whatever, I would obviously report that (to CSIS) … but I was still building my relationship with him,” Milton told the RCMP.

Partial transcripts of Milton’s interviews with the RCMP are found in a court application filed by Peshdary’s lawyer, Solomon Friedman, who is requesting records from CSIS so he can properly defend his client. The lawyer wants access to materials related to the CSIS investigation of Peshdary and the spy agency’s dealings with Milton. The application notes that Milton is a key prosecution witness whose credibility and reliability will be issues at Peshdary’s trial.

Peshdary, 26, was charged in February 2015 with recruiting, financing and facilitating terrorism.

The RCMP believe Peshdary’s star recruit was John Maguire, who quietly left Canada in December 2012 to join ISIL in Syria, where he was featured in a propaganda video declaring religious war on his home country. The Islamic State reported Maguire died fighting in 2015, though his death has never been confirmed.

New details about the case against Peshdary are included in the court filings — including Milton’s analysis that while Peshdary, his longtime target, “used to be more radical,” he “was now a changed man and less radical.”

The RCMP’s case that finally yielded charges against Peshdary was initially built on a foundation so shaky that investigators were twice turned down when they went to get search warrants against Maguire. 

Ontario Court Justice Peter Wright refused to sign off on the RCMP warrants in 2013, saying the Mounties had fallen “very far short of the requisite standards expected at law.” 

 The judge also said the RCMP had “failed to establish that its sources of this investigation are reliable or trustworthy as is required.” 

It wasn’t until CSIS shared its intelligence that the Mounties were able to finally secure a search warrants for electronic and computer data.

According to a CSIS briefing to the RCMP, Peshdary accompanied Maguire in the car ride to a Montreal airport, where Maguire boarded a plane for overseas. Peshdary kept in contact with Maguire while he was in Syria, with CSIS intercepting four conversations in the summer of 2013, according to court filings.

John Maguire

In one intercepted conversation on Aug. 7, 2013, Maguire is heard asking Peshdary for advice about an undefined situation.

Milton’s role as a CSIS asset remains unclear. In one of his interviews with the RCMP, he said his work with CSIS had been a “learning experience” and that he had made mistakes along the way. He also noted that he has a weird memory and had to train himself to keep repeating key details in his mind to remember them.

None of the terrorism charges has been proven against Peshdary, who remains in jail awaiting trial, which is scheduled for 2018.

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Musab A-Noor, accused of killing his two sisters last month, has been found unfit for trial.

A-Noor, 29, remains in hospital and missed another hearing Wednesday morning in Ottawa’s mental health court.

A court-appointed psychiatrist who assessed A-Noor has concluded the accused killer is not mentally-fit to be prosecuted. His next court appearance is scheduled for Friday, where the next phase of the case will be decided.

It is expected the courts will agree to a treatment plan with the hopes of one day making him well enough to stand trial, according to his lawyer Samir Adam.

He is charged with first- and second-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of his sisters Nasiba, 32, and Asma, 29.

More than 1,500 mourners attended their funeral in December.

The sisters were remembered as “influential and inspiring.”

Their brother was arrested by a set of railroad tracks not far from the McCarthy Road home where police found the bodies of the slain sisters. He was initially taken into custody under the Mental Health Act for his own safety.

A parking lot is taped off at the scene of a homicide investigation on McCarthy Road on Friday, Dec. 16, 2016.

Related

• 'Unfit for trial' ruling casts man accused of killing his two sisters into legal limbo

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Federal prosecutors have dropped their case against suspected Ottawa terrorist Tevis Gonyou-McLean, who stood accused of threatening to avenge last year’s death of ISIL supporter Aaron Driver.

Gonyou-McLean’s arrest made national headlines but the alleged threat, which he denies, has not been revealed until now.

On Aug. 12, two days after Driver’s death, Gonyou-McLean’s mother reported to the RCMP that her son said he was going to exact revenge, and “that he would not hurt civilians, but he knew who he would hurt.”

It should be noted that while his mother provided the RCMP with secretly recorded conversations with her son, the alleged threat was not documented on tape.

The Crown decided to abandon the case and formally stayed the uttering-threats charges Thursday.

Related

• Inside the world of suspected Ottawa terrorist Tevis Gonyou-McLean
• Suspected terrorist out of solitary and free on bail

Gonyou-McLean, 24, was arrested two days after Driver’s death and charged with uttering threats. Instead of laying terrorism charges, the RCMP secured a terrorism bond that required him to wear a GPS ankle bracelet and live at a shelter for drug treatment.

Driver was shot by police after he detonated a bomb during a counter-terrorism raid by RCMP in Strathroy, Ont.

The strict conditions proved unbearable for the pizza maker, who once, out of frustration, smashed his ankle bracelet and another time, in November, slipped out of the GPS device and was arrested hours later. His arrest led to him being jailed on Nov. 5 for allegedly violating his release conditions.

The Muslim convert, who has no criminal record, was housed in a segregation unit at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre — including at least five days in the same cell with a 350-pound convicted sex offender who punched him out after his Twizzlers Nibs went missing.

Gonyou-McLean, who remains at the jail, is still facing criminal charges for allegedly breaching his strict release conditions.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Citizen, Gonyou-McLean denied having any sympathy for ISIL and said he’s being persecuted for simply exploring Islam.

“My life got turned upside down. … I have lost all my friends and I had a lot of friends,” he said.

“I’ve never even met anyone that has supported (ISIL) in any sense,” he said.

Gonyou-McLean firmly believes his exploration of Islam and his questions, combined with all the times he watched Islamic videos online, are what led to his arrest. (His conditions also say he can’t access or view materials from any listed terrorist group, and must not possess any objects with an Islamic State logo.)

“I haven’t done anything,” he said. “All of this is for asking questions.”

Musab A-Noor, accused of killing his two sisters last month, made his first court appearance Friday via video, sitting statue-still with a towel over his head while staring out the window of a psychiatric hospital.

A court-appointed psychiatrist has concluded A-Noor, 29, is unfit for trial and suffers from schizophrenia. The judge agreed to a 60-day treatment plan at the Royal Ottawa with the hopes he will be fit to stand trial for the Dec. 16 slayings of his sisters Nasiba, 32, and Asma, 29.

Dr. Michelle Mathias told court that A-Noor doesn’t understand the court process, nor is he concerned about its outcome.
The treatment plan will include sedative and anti-psychotic drugs, which he has refused for the last two days.

Mathias described the accused as catatonic and said he sometimes laughed inappropriately during assessments.

The forensic psychiatrist told court that it appeared the accused killer was hallucinating, and that his mind was in a “great state of disorganization.”

Dr. Mathias also said the reason he had refused medication was because A-Noor didn’t think he needed it, and complained it hurt his stomach.

The doctor said she was struck by his catatonic state and told court that he has declined to speak about the night he’s accused of killing his two sisters. The mental health court also heard that A-Noor has poor insight and judgment, and has an inadequate understanding of the legal proceedings.

Asked if he understood what he was charged with, the psychiatrist reported that the accused replied: “Murder I think, but I’m not sure.”

A-Noor is charged with first- and second-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of his sisters.

More than 1,500 mourners attended their funeral in December.

The sisters were remembered as “influential and inspiring.”

Their brother was arrested by a set of railroad tracks not far from the McCarthy Road home where police found the bodies of the slain sisters. He was initially taken into custody under the Mental Health Act for his own safety.

The accused remains in hospital until his next court appearance.

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It would be a month before the police, and time, caught up with Devontay Hackett.

Wanted in the 2014 prom-night slaying of Brandon Volpi, Hackett was later arrested in Toronto, and while his life on the lam was four hours away from the scene of the crime, he was still wearing — literally — a key piece of incriminating evidence: his watch.

The one that still had the victim’s blood on it.

The jury at Devontay Hackett’s second-degree murder trial heard Tuesday about the DNA, along with other Crown evidence — including video footage of the deadly violence that capped a night of prom parties for the Class of 2014.

Some of the video was captured by hotel guests leaning over their balconies, documenting the bloody brawl below, outside of Les Suites Hotel in downtown Ottawa on June 7, 2014. 

In one cellphone video, Hackett, then 18, is seen engaged in a vicious, seconds-long fight with Volpi.

Devontay Hackett.

The video shows the accused killer holding an object in his right hand, the one he uses to lunge at Volpi before running away down an alley.

It appears as though Volpi is clutching his neck, and he later collapses by a statue outside the hotel. His throat had been slashed, and he suffered a fatal stab wound to his heart, the jury heard. A security guard and others came to his aid, applying pressure to his neck and administering CPR.

The cellphone video shown in court is not ideal quality. It’s sometimes blurry and shot from a distance and, if not for the admission of the defence, it would be hard to pick Devontay Hackett out of the crowd. 

The chilling, final images of young Brandon Volpi were shown over and over again in court as his father, Danny Volpi, sat in silence in the gallery.

Not even the “heroic” efforts of surgeons could save Brandon Volpi, assistant Crown attorney Michael Boyce said in his opening address to the jury — four women, eight men.

The prosecutor said Volpi was having a good time with friends, first at the prom at the NAC, and later at the Camp Fortune after-party. Then it was a shuttle bus to the hotel, where things turned ugly.

“And yet, as the sun was coming up in the early hours of June 14, and some prom celebrations were winding down, Brandon Volpi’s life was coming to an end,” Boyce told the jury.

The trouble began when one of Volpi’s friends was having a lousy prom night, and was in some sort of distress with another group of grads from another high school. It may have been a fight over a missing cellphone, the jury heard. 

Either way, the high schooler was afraid to walk to his neighbouring hotel so Volpi agreed to escort him. 

It is the Crown’s theory, anchored in hotel surveillance video and cellphone footage, that Hackett and a gang of friends waited for them outside. And that’s when the deadly brawl began.

The jury was also shown hotel surveillance video of Hackett later running into the alley between Les Suites Hotel and Novotel. Hackett is then seen getting into the backseat of a car only to leave moments later, heading south toward Daly Avenue. 

Police later recovered key evidence in the car and alley — including the blood of the accused and victim.

Le Droit news photographer Martin Roy, on his way to the scene of the crime, discovered a discarded shirt that also had the blood of the accused and victim on it, the jury heard. 

According to prosecutors, Hackett then made his way up to the University of Ottawa and made his getaway by hopping on the 95, eastbound.

Hackett was captured by police in Toronto a month later, and the prosecutor noted that he was still wearing the same watch, the one with Brandon Volpi’s blood on it. 

“The only reasonable conclusion,” the prosecutor told the jury, “is that Mr. Hackett is guilty of murder.”

Hackett, 21, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and is being defended by Joseph Addelman and Samantha Robinson. 

Hacket paid close attention to the videos and often took notes in the prisoner’s box.

The Crown’s case against Devontay Hackett continues Wednesday.

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The police case against accused prom-night killer Devontay Hackett is anchored in video and DNA evidence.

And on Wednesday, the jury at his second-degree murder trial again was shown a key video of the deadly June 7, 2014, brawl outside Les Suites Hotel. Only this time, the jury’s guided tour was not the police version.

It was Joseph Addelman’s. 

The defence lawyer’s frame-by-frame dissection of the blurry video came during his cross-examination of Mike Ross, the civilian police employee who collected video footage at the behest of detectives investigating the prom-night slaying of 18-year-old Brandon Volpi. His throat was slashed and he had been knifed in the heart — the fatal wound, according to doctors who pronounced him dead at 5:06 a.m. 

Addelman established that Hackett, 21, is not seen holding a knife in any of the hundreds of frames from cellphone video taken by high school graduates leaning over their hotel balconies. The police theory is that Hackett slashed Volpi, using a knife in his right hand, then ran away down an alley, hopped a bus, then a cab and lived as a fugitive for a month before police arrested him in Toronto.

The defence lawyer drew the jury’s attention to a scene in the deadly brawl, notably when Hackett is seen hitting someone in the head with his right hand. Addelman noted, again, that there’s no knife in Hackett’s hand in the streaky and blotchy cellphone videos. It’s also hard to figure out what’s going on in the brawl because the cellphone footage provides only an aerial view.

In the civilian police employee’s examination-in-chief, Ross often pointed Hackett out to jurors as he guided them through the police version of the video, but under cross-examination he acknowledged that he didn’t know Hackett or the victim and had been told who they were by homicide detectives. Ross also acknowledged that while he collected hours and hours of video, the Crown only played minutes of it to the jury. 

Addelman also established that while there were several young men seen in the deadly brawl, the police video man was only tasked with tracking the steps of Hackett.

After questioning Ross about his training, Addelman established that the civilian police employee had no specialized skills to interpret the body movements on the video.

“So you would be in the same position as any of us who watch movies or videos?” Addelman asked.

“Yes,” Ross replied.

Hackett was later arrested in Toronto a month after the killing. The jury has heard that he was wearing the same watch on the night in question, with the victim’s blood still on it.

Hackett has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. His trial continues Thursday at the Elgin Street courthouse.

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Seconds after Brandon Volpi was slashed in the throat and stabbed in the heart on his prom night, he clutched his bleeding neck and shouted angrily, “Who did this? Who did this?”

The St. Patrick’s High School grad’s dying words were revealed at his accused killer’s trial on Thursday when Les Suites Hotel security guard Brandon Armstrong took the stand and recounted the bloody morning of June 7, 2014.

Armstrong, 24, testified that he walked outside the hotel’s main entrance after he was radioed by another security guard reporting a brawl and looking for back up. 

It was chaotic, and drunk high school grads were screaming, he told court.

It was Armstrong who applied pressure to Volpi’s neck and later administered CPR.

“He was holding the left side of his neck. He was pretty confused and angry, shouting (to his friends), ‘Who did this? Who did this?’ He seemed confused and agitated,” Armstrong testified at the second-degree murder trial of Devontay Hackett, 21.

Volpi was dying fast and started losing his strength.

A month after Brandon Volpi, left, was killed, Devontay Hackett continues to elude police. A Canada-wide warrant for Hackett’s arrest on a second-degree murder charge was issued in the days following the June 7 stabbing.

He lay down at the foot of the statue of Venezuelan military and political leader Simon Bolivar, in front of the hotel. Volpi was in shock and didn’t understand the severity of his wounds, and his words suddenly stopped making sense.

“I tried to keep him talking. He got more pale and after awhile his eyes rolled back,” the security guard told the jury, four women, eight men.

Volpi’s shirt was soaked in blood, and he “had no clue of what was going on,” Armstrong testified. 

The police case against Hackett is anchored in video and DNA evidence that includes a shirt that has the blood of both Hacket and Volpi.

The jury has also heard that when Hackett was arrested a month later in Toronto, he was wearing the same watch he wore on the day in question, and Volpi’s blood was still on the watch.

The jury has been shown hours and hours of video, including cellphone video of the deadly brawl captured by hotel guests leaning over their balconies above.

Hackett has pleaded not guilty and his trial continues Friday morning in Courtroom No. 34 at the Elgin Street courthouse.

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The Class of 2014 prom was doomed before it began, and young, unarmed Brandon Volpi —slashed in the throat and knifed in the heart — would be dead nine minutes before sunup.

One week before the deadly brawl between St. Pat’s and St. Pius grads, Mauricio Rogriguez had confronted Devontay Hackett about a friend’s missing cellphone.

Rogriguez, testifying at the second-degree murder trial of Hackett on Monday, said the accused became hostile.

Then a week later, at the end of the after-prom bash at Camp Fortune, Rogriguez felt a fearful stare from Hackett, he told the court.

He said he had a bad feeling and it was enough for him to make sure the St. Pat’s and Pius grads left in separate shuttle buses.

Mind you, all the buses were going to the same hotel district in Ottawa, and the trouble followed, with Rogriguez getting cracked in the back of the neck with a bottle. (It took two cracks for the bottle to break.)

Now 20, Rogriguez said it was a black man who hit him, but didn’t get a look at the other from-behind attacker.

He told court that he ran into Les Suites Hotel and first asked the front desk if he could be escorted across the alley to his hotel, Novotel.

“They said there was nothing they could do and declined to help me,” he recalled.

His version of event was corroborated by hotel surveillance video showing him at the front desk seconds after the attack.

So when a security guard also turned him down, he turned to the young man he said had never let him down, Brandon Volpi, 18.

Volpi had once told him: “I will always have your back,” court heard.

Volpi didn’t skip a beat and started escorting Rogriguez back when they were met by Hackett and his friends from Pius.

The deadly, seconds-long brawl that followed was captured on video by other grads leaning over their hotel balconies.

The video footage, broken down in court, frame by frame, does not show a knife in Hackett’s right hand.

Ottawa homicide detectives have yet to find the knife.

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Joseph Addelman, Rogriguez stood his ground when it was suggested he didn’t actually remember anything from the night in question. He had blacked out and suffered a concussion and a brain hemorrhage, but he maintained that while he doesn’t remember all of it, he recalls key moments and facts.

Hackett has pleaded not guilty and was arrested as a fugitive in Toronto a month after the June 7, 2014 killing.

Though four hours away from the crime scene, he was still wearing incriminating evidence — his Michael Kors watch, the one with the inscription “Forever Rich.”

It still had the victim’s blood in it.

The murder trial continues Tuesday at the Elgin Street courthouse.

The watch, back and front, that Devontay Hackett was wearing when arrested for the killing of Brandon Volpi. 

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The lawyer defending accused prom-night killer Devontay Hackett chipped away Tuesday at a Crown witness’s version of events leading to the 2014 slaying of Brandon Volpi.

Under cross-examination by Joseph Addelman, witness Mauricio Rodriguez, 20, was grilled about his spotty memory and changing story.

Rodriguez has testified that he asked Volpi, 18, to walk him back to his hotel for fear of Hackett, with whom he’d earlier had trouble at an after-prom party.

Rodriguez told court he had been attacked outside the hotel by two different unknown assailants who at separate times hit him in the back of the neck with a bottle.

But Addelman noted that in Rodriguez’s interviews with police in June 2014, he never mentioned being hit with a bottle.

Rodriguez countered that he just didn’t remember certain things, and that suffering from a concussion and brain hemorrhage didn’t help. He also said when the police came calling on the morning of June 7, 2014, he still hadn’t slept.

In his police interview, he was asked to draw a diagram of the scene and the path he said he took when he ran, out of fear, into Les Suites Hotel. His drawing was way off, from the lay of the land to the route he took to escape back to the hotel.

Witness Mauricio Rodriguez / Facebook

He also got some timing wrong and told court that watching the videos along with the jury had helped him remember.

The jury heard that Rodriguez also didn’t mention to police that he saw Devontay outside the hotel.

“There were certain things I couldn’t remember, and certain things I could, naturally,” Rodriguez testified.

The defence lawyer then played security video from the hotel lobby, and questioned Rodriguez simultaneously.

“Do you know this guy? Addelman pressed.

Rodriguez, looking at a skinny white guy with a blue shirt and ponytail, said he didn’t.

Then Addelman reminded the witness that he had earlier told police he was having a problem with someone who matched the same description.

“Do you know this guy?” Addelman asked about another young grad in the hotel lobby video.

“No clue,” Rodriguez replied.

The defence lawyer then noted that Rodriguez was once on the same soccer team as the teen in the video.

The witness explained to court that he’s living an “isolated” life and doesn’t “normally pay attention to people in my past.”

The defence lawyer’s hardest hit came late in the cross-examination.

Addelman, playing the hotel lobby video, noted that Rodriguez could be seen among a room full of friends and Hackett, the guy he has said he feared. The video is taken some two minutes before the deadly brawl outside.

Addelman pounced on the witness, asking him why he didn’t say to his friends: “That’s the guy who is the problem.”

The video shows the man and Rodriguez standing just four feet apart.

“Did you tell any of your friends?” Addelman asked.

“No. I just wanted to get to my hotel safely,” Rodriguez maintained.

The deadly brawl outside the hotel happened two minutes later, and Volpi — who always had Rodriguez’s back — was slashed in the throat and stabbed in the heart.

Hackett has pleaded not guilty.

He was arrested as a fugitive in Toronto a month after the June 7, 2014 killing. Though four hours away from the crime scene, he was still wearing incriminating evidence — his Michael Kors watch, the one with the inscription “Forever Rich.” It still had the victim’s blood in it.

The murder trial continues Wednesday at the Elgin Street courthouse.

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The prized RCMP agent who infiltrated an ISIL network in Ottawa was also paid by CSIS to spy on one of the same terror targets years earlier. 

The new details in the RCMP case against accused terrorism financier and recruiter Awso Peshdary, 27, were revealed in court on Thursday when his defence team — Solomon Friedman and Michael Edelson — made arguments in its bid to get all the records from CSIS so it can properly defend its client.

Court heard that federal prosecutors didn’t let the terrorism suspect’s defence team know about the RCMP agent’s paid CSIS history until two days ago, even though Peshdary was charged two years ago. 

“In a case where our client’s liberty interests are at their highest, we’re already being asked to fight this battle with one arm tied behind our back. We do not have access to information that in any other criminal case would be a matter of routine,” Solomon Friedman told Ontario Superior Court Justice Julianne Parfett.

The defence request for all files related to the RCMP agent’s prior dealings with CSIS are key because without CSIS information, the Mounties were getting nowhere securing warrants in the terrorism case. In fact, the RCMP were previously denied warrants twice in the case until CSIS helped them out.

Without full disclosure of all the CSIS documents, the defence is essentially “blindfolded” from meaningful cross-examination of RCMP agent Abdullah Milton, Friedman told court. 

The credibility and reliability of Milton, the star witness in the Crown case, will be key issues at the terrorism trial scheduled for 2018.

Friedman argued that the records should be disclosed because Milton is not a protected source, but rather a paid police agent who has waived his privacy privilege and has agreed to testify against Peshdary at trial. 

A key issue at trial will be how Milton, a Muslim convert from New Brunswick, went from terrorism target to prized agent. 

The RCMP agent has so far been paid at least $800,000 by the Mounties to spy on his one-time friends in an anti-terrorism investigation that yielded criminal charges against a network in Ottawa, including three targets who have already pleaded guilty. It is not yet known how much he was paid by CSIS.

Friedman said he intends to also question the motives of the agent, ranging from financial to whether the agent was a neutral observer or an active participant in the conspiracy.

“Whose conspiracy was this? Was it (the agent’s)? Was his role passive and just intelligence gathering? Or was he essentially whipping it up?” Friedman told court. 

Milton has said that he fell into the spy business by accident. He said that in January 2011 CSIS paid him a visit after he posted photos he took of Parliament Hill as a tourist. He went on to work for CSIS but the details of his contract have never been made public. 

When the Mounties were investigating Peshdary, they moved to expand their terrorism probe to include one of his associates — Abdullah Milton — not knowing that he man was actually a CSIS agent.

CSIS then cut its ties with Milton and handed him over to the RCMP in 2014.

Milton’s work is credited for convictions against terror twins Ashton and Carlos Larmond, and Suliman Mohamed, who pleaded guilty in August to plotting to leave the country to join ISIL.  

The case against Peshdary is also anchored in the agent’s spy work. Peshdary has pleaded not guilty to financing and recruiting and is scheduled to go on trial in 2018.

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It has been billed as a drunken, deadly prom-night brawl, but the young St. Pat’s grad who was slashed and stabbed to death on June 7, 2014, arguably had the clearest mind, as toxicology results show that he had consumed only the equivalent of a half pint of beer leading up to his killing.

Brandon Volpi’s toxicology results were revealed during testimony by respected forensic pathologist Dr. Christopher Milroy at the second-degree murder trial of Devontay Hackett on Friday at the Ottawa courthouse.

Dr. Milroy testified that Volpi, 18, died from a fatal stab wound to the heart around 3:30 a.m. on June 7, 2014, and was pronounced dead at 5:06 a.m.

Volpi, a tall, handsome grad, had agreed to walk a friend back to his neighbouring downtown hotel because his classmate feared Hackett. The jury — four women and eight men — has heard that the friend turned to Volpi for help because he recalled that he always had his back.

Seconds after Volpi started escorting his friend from Les Suites Hotel to Novotel, a vicious, seconds-long brawl ensued, and ended in homicide. Cellphone video footage of the deadly brawl, captured by hotel guests leaning over their balconies, has been shown again and again to the jury. The video is blurry and not an authoritative account of what happened.

Defence lawyer Joseph Addelman has told the jury that his client, Hackett, is not seen holding a knife in any of the hundreds of still frames from the video footage.

Ottawa police detectives have yet to find the weapon used in the killing.

But they have found a pile of other evidence, including the victim’s blood on Hackett’s Michael Kors watch when he was arrested as a fugitive in Toronto a month later. Though Hackett, now 21, was living four hours from the crime scene, he was still wearing  — literally — key incriminating evidence against him. The back of his watch is inscribed with “Forever Rich.”

Another key piece of evidence — a discarded T-shirt with the blood of both the accused killer and victim on it — was found by Le Droit photographer Martin Roy who was checking out the scene. The newspaper photographer’s discovery of key evidence has been praised by police, and he testified about it last week.

Volpi, by all courtroom accounts, was a standup guy who had his friends’ backs. And the night he had Mauricio Rodriguez’s back, he was slashed and stabbed to death after the Class of 2014 prom party.

Court heard that, after being stabbed, Volpi clutched his bleeding neck and shouted angrily, “Who did this? Who did this?”

Volpi was dying fast and starting to lose his strength. He laid down at the foot of the statue of Venezuelan military and political leader Simon Bolivar, in front of the hotel. Volpi was in shock and didn’t understand the severity of his wounds, and his words suddenly stopped making sense.

“I tried to keep him talking. He got more pale and after a while his eyes rolled back,” a security guard told court.

Hackett has pleaded not guilty and his trial continues Monday morning in Courtroom No. 34 at the Elgin Street courthouse.

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The homicide detective kept pressing Devontay Hackett to come clean about the 2014 prom killing of St. Patrick’s high school grad Brandon Volpi. 

Det. Chris Benson said he knew the how, the where and the who, but needed to hear the why.

Slumped in an Ottawa police interview, a cocky Hackett said little beyond cliches: “Why don’t you tell me” or “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A jury was shown a video of the July 2014 police interview at Hackett’s second-degree murder trial Tuesday.

At the start of the interview, the seasoned detective brings in pizza — an Ottawa police standard for hungry accused killers.

The detective explains the longer Hackett waits to tell the truth, the more his credibility will crumble.

“If you didn’t know what happened, you wouldn’t be sitting in that chair. … I’m trying to help you help yourself,” Benson pressed.

“You’re 18. You still have a lot of time in your life,” Benson told him.

The detective also played the mom card, mentioning that she was proud of her son, noting he was the first in the family to graduate high school.

He asked what she would think of him now.

Though Hackett said little, he said enough, going from not acknowledging he was even at the after-prom parties to pointing to himself in a photograph the detective showed him. “That’s me,” he said, when shown a photo of the event.

Hackett was interviewed by police after he had spoken to a lawyer. In the interview, he spoke about his rights, and said he didn’t know Brandon Volpi, 18.

He also said he wanted to call his mother.

The detective said it was a sad narrative all around, with one kid killed on his prom night, and another arrested for murder.

Brandon Volpi was slashed in the throat and stabbed in the heart outside Les Suites Hotel at 3:30 a.m on July 7, 2014.

He clutched his bleeding neck and shouted angrily, “Who did this? Who did this?”

The court has heard that it was a chaotic, drunken night, but that Volpi was not intoxicated.

The police theory is that the deadly brawl happened seconds after Volpi agreed to walk a friend back to his hotel after the fellow grad said he had problems with Hackett earlier in the night over a missing cellphone.

The police case against Hackett, 21, is anchored in video and DNA evidence that includes a shirt that has the blood of both Hackett and Volpi.

The jury has also heard that when Hackett was arrested in Toronto a month after the killing, he was wearing the same watch he wore on the day in question, and that Volpi’s blood was still on it.

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The defence team for accused prom-night killer Devontay Hackett launched its case on Monday with explosive testimony from a witness who placed the murder weapon in another man’s hand.

Danielle Saunders Gauthier testified that she witnessed the deadly brawl outside Les Suites Hotel on June 7, 2014, and that it was a “dark-skinned guy” who was swinging a knife at Brandon Volpi, a mutual friend of hers. 

In examination in chief by Joseph Addelman, the witness said Hackett, 21, was definitely not the one swinging a knife Volpi because “this guy’s skin was a lot darker than Devontay’s.” 

The witness told the jury — four women, eight men — that she didn’t stick around the hotel because “I kind of went into a panic and (just wanted to leave.)

Under cross-examination by assistant Crown attorney Michael Boyce, the witness said while she saw another man swinging a knife at Volpi in the deadly seconds-long, brawl, she said she couldn’t actually say if the knife made contact with the 18-year-old grad, who was slashed in the throat and stabbed in the heart on his prom night. 

Cellphone video of the brawl is blurry and it’s hard to know who held the knife.

The prosecution theory is that Volpi was knifed by Hackett, who as a fugitive for a month left a trail of evidence, from a discarded shirt, which had his and the victim’s blood on it, to the Michael Kors watch he wore on the night of the killing. Hackett was still wearing the watch when he was arrested in July 2014, and the jury has heard that it still had the victim’s blood on it.

The jury has also seen hours and hours of video — including surveillance footage that literally tracks Hackett’s every step in the minutes after Volpi collapsed.

The police have a pile of evidence — mostly video and DNA — but have yet to find the murder weapon.

Earlier on Monday, Addelman delivered his opening address to the jury, noting the defence had no obligation to call evidence.

“This is not Devontay’s case to prove. But in a case like this … and given the relevance of (Saunders-Gauthier’s) observations, we felt it was incumbent that you hear this testimony and that you have the opportunity to consider it along with all the other evidence in the this case,” Addelman told the jury. 

The lawyer then recounted the “unmitigated tragedy” for the Class of 2014, with one grad killed on his prom night and another charged with murder.

“And now you sit in judgment over Devontay’s fate … You have heard the Crown’s case … But you have not heard all the relevant evidence,” Addelman said.

The lawyer told the jury it was time to tell Devontay Hackett’s side of the story.

Hackett has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. His trial continues Tuesday at the Elgin Street courthouse.

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Prosecutors in the case against accused prom-night killer Devontay Hackett branded a key defence witness a liar on Tuesday, suggesting she didn’t actually see anyone with a knife in the 2014 brawl that left Brandon Volpi dead.

Danielle Saunders Gauthier went to police five days after the June 7, 2014, killing, saying not only did she see the murder weapon, but she saw it in another man’s hand. 

No other witness actually saw a knife, and none is seen on cellphone video of the deadly brawl outside Les Suites Hotel.

Her testimony — the only evidence so far that has bolstered Hackett’s defence — came under scrutiny during cross-examination by assistant Crown attorney Michael Boyce. 

The prosecutor established that the key defence witness has in fact told two “very, very different” stories, and took the jury at the second-degree murder trial back to Saunders Gauthier’s police interview on June 12, 2014.

The account she gave seasoned Det. Kevin Wilcox is at odds with the one she told in court.

Back in 2014, she told police that she saw another man slash Volpi’s throat, but in court she testified that while she saw the man swinging a knife at him, she didn’t actually see it make contact — let alone slit his throat.

The star witness told court that she put “two and two together” and “assumed” that she saw the actual stabbing after incorporating what she had learned from others and from news accounts. 

The prosecutor also noted that her vantage point of the seconds-long brawl was from inside the lobby, through glass, at night, and on an angle. Could it be that she possibly got it wrong?

“No,” she replied firmly.

The witness agreed that she got some details wrong, including timing, but stood her ground when it came to seeing another man — and not Hackett —  swinging a knife at Volpi, 18.

Hackett’s defence team, led by Samantha Robinson and Joseph Addelman, cleaned up some of the loose ends in re-examination of their star witness.

“Are you making this up?” Addelman pressed.

“No!” she replied.

“Did anyone put you up to this?

“No.”

The prosecution theory is that Volpi was knifed by Hackett, who lived as a fugitive for a month before he was arrested in Toronto. He was still wearing the Michael Kors watch he wore on prom night, which still had the victim’s blood on it.

The jury has also seen hours and hours of video — including surveillance footage that literally tracks Hackett’s every step in the minutes after Volpi collapsed.

The police have a pile of evidence — mostly video and DNA — but have yet to find the murder weapon.

Hackett has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. His trial continues Wednesday at the Elgin Street courthouse.

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When the east-end stripper tried to break free from his grip, Carson Morin said she had to learn the hard way.

So the pimp showed up at her friend’s Orleans home wearing surgical gloves, armed with a box-cutter and looking for his newly recruited moneymaker.

It was the afternoon of May 15, 2013, and the dancer’s friend, Michael Wassill, opened his front door on Fernleaf Crescent only to be shoved up against a wall as Morin slashed his throat, say prosecutors, who revealed their theory at Morin’s first-degree murder trial on Wednesday.

In his opening address to the jury — six women, six men — Jason Neubauer said it wasn’t a case of a jealous boyfriend who killed for love, but rather greed.

Michael Wassill.

The prosecution’s theory is that Morin was enraged that the stripper wanted out. He had got her a job at The NuDen, and drove her to and from her shifts, taking a cut of her nightly earnings.

“She wanted out and Mr. Morin wouldn’t stand for it … and Mr. Morin’s refusal to let her go led to the death of Mike (Wassill),” Neubauer told the jury.

Prosecutors noted Morin’s own texts show he was brooding about revenge.

“You ever see me snap on a b—-? you’re gonna,” he texted someone in the days leading to killing.

Wassill, 20, was portrayed in court Wednesday as a stand-up guy who never let his friends down. The jury heard he was the one who not only encouraged the dancer to leave her pimp, but let her stay at his Orleans home.

The prosecution’s theme is that Wassill’s final moments in life were spent protecting his friend, whose name is shielded by a publication ban. She is expected to testify later this week.

The Crown told the jury Morin had a vision, supported by a business plan, to establish a network of strippers across Ottawa whom he’d run, taking a cut of their profits.

Morin, who is being defended by Natasha Calvinho and Leo Russomanno, has pleaded not guilty. The prosecution — led by Lia Bramwell and Neubauer — continues its case Thursday in Courtroom No. 35 at the Elgin Street courthouse. 

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The young Orléans woman was easy pickings for Carson Morin, a 20-year-old pimp in the suburbs who wanted to build a network of strippers.

She was making minimum wage at The Shoe Company and had a cocaine and weed habit to finance, so she jumped at Morin’s offer to become a stripper at The NuDen. Morin billed it as a fun way to make lots of money, a courtroom heard Thursday.

Their deal was that she would live with Morin, pay half the condo rent and utilities and pay him $40 to drive her to her shifts at the strip club, where she danced four to five nights a week.

And, as she told Morin’s first-degree murder trial, the money “was a lot better than The Shoe Company.”

To supplement her minimum-wage earnings, and feed her own habit, she told court, she used to sell drugs — mostly marijuana and the odd cocaine deal — about five times a day, seven days a week.)

Morin stuck to his business plan and installed a stripper pole in one of his bedrooms, fitting it with mirrors so his new, “enthusiastic” recruit could practise her trade.

Morin is on trial for the May 15, 2013, killing of Michael Wassill, whose throat was slit at the front door of his Orléans home as he tried to protect the stripper, who by that point was trying to get away from Morin.

The 20-year-old victim stumbled into the kitchen and collapsed. He died days later in hospital.

The prosecution’s theory is that Morin, enraged that the stripper was trying to break free of his grip, stalked her and showed up at Wassill’s front door armed with a box-cutter and wearing surgical gloves.

Prosecutors’ star witness, who saw the killing, took the stand Thursday.

She has yet to recount her eye-witness account, but she detailed how her life had changed “the day Mike died.”

“My family changed, my friends changed. It pretty much changed my life upside-down,” testified the woman, whose name is shielded by a publication ban. 

She then told court that she has turned her life around.

“I put my life back together, found a good job, nothing illegal-wise,” she testified. 

Earlier on Thursday, prosecutors called a friend of the victim to help portray the accused killer as an angry, hostile man who would pace around and storm out of a room before losing his cool.

Unlike a lot of pimps, the court heard, Morin didn’t approve of “his girls” using drugs, and was so strict about it that his new recruit hid her drug habit from him.

The stripper said she fell for her pimp fast, telling court: “I had a crush on him.”

It was so fast that she moved into his condo days after meeting, then immediately set out to accomplish what prosecutors called his “business plan” — the one that had a young Orléans woman dancing for strange men, while paying half her pimp’s rent, plus that daily $40 driving fee.

Their business arrangement soured a month later, and ended in the homicide, according to prosecutors. 

On the eve of its deliberations, the jury in the second-degree murder trial of accused prom-night killer Devontay Hackett was asked to believe two wildly different interpretations of the key video that captured the deadly Class of 2014 brawl.

Prosecutors said it shows that Hackett slashed Brandon Volpi’s throat and knifed his heart. No, it proves his innocence, defence lawyers declared.

Going into the fifth week of trial, the most incriminating evidence against Hackett — the blurry cellphone video — was also held up on Monday as the key piece that clears his name.

In a dramatic closing address to the jury — six women, six men — defence lawyer Joseph Addelman said the prosecution’s case was built on uncertainty and riddled with reasonable doubt.

“This is reasonable doubt you could drive a truck through,” Addelman said.

He told the jury the video doesn’t show any knife, let alone one in Hackett’s right hand. If anything, he said, the video vindicates his client because it shows him punching another man in the head during the brawl, with his right hand, and without any knife in it.

The blotchy video of the deadly brawl has been dissected for the jury by the Crown and defence, frame by frame, in slow-motion, again and again, for hours.

“You can break it down a million ways to Sunday, but there is no knife. The cellphone video is positive evidence that my client did not have a knife,” Addelman told the jury.

The defence lawyer noted that police witness Danielle Saunders Gauthier was the only one who said she saw a knife, and, as she testified last week, she saw it in another man’s hand. Addelman told the jury that prosecutors didn’t call her to the stand, and instead “chose to call a bunch of kids who didn’t see anything.”

“But I called her to the stand … and Danielle provides the only evidence that you have heard about the knife in four weeks of testimony. And guess what? The knife was in another guy’s hands.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is textbook reasonable doubt … You cannot hang the sign of murderer around Devontay’s neck and leave him to rot. Not on this evidence.

“It is you the jury who stand like a bulwark between Devontay Hackett and a miscarriage of justice … You will bring justice. And justice in this case is a verdict of not guilty,” Addelman told the jury.

Assistant Crown Attorney Michael Boyce told the jury a different story, one in which, he said, Hackett can clearly be seen in the video killing Volpi, 18.

“We ask you to believe your eyes,” Boyce urged.

The prosecutor told the jury that Hackett brought a knife to a fist fight and intended to kill Volpi after a simmering feud with a mutual friend. 

Boyce then zeroed in on what Hackett did after the killing. He reminded the jury that Hackett was the one who not only bolted from the crime scene but left town, then did Internet research on how to move to Jamaica. 

Boyce told the jury there could be no doubt that Hackett killed Volpi outside Les Suites Hotel on June 7, 2014. 

When Hackett was arrested a month later in Toronto, he was wearing the same watch he’d worn on the night in question. The victim’s blood was still on it, the jury heard.

It may have felt like justice, but there was little to celebrate. 

Danny Volpi, father of Brandon Volpi — the 18-year-old St. Patrick’s High School grad who was slashed to death on his prom night — wasn’t on his way to a party after a jury returned a guilty verdict in the 2014 killing of his son on Friday.

The grieving father was heading to Hope Cemetery on Bank Street to visit his son’s grave.

“We got what we were looking for. He was convicted … It doesn’t bring my son back. I still lost a part of me. That’s never going to change. That pain’s there forever,” Danny Volpi told the Citizen moments after his son’s killer, Devontay Hackett, was led away in handcuffs, convicted of second-degree murder.  

“Am I happy? Not really. My son doesn’t come back. But this guy’s going to serve time … I’m glad it’s over. I can move on in my life, without my son, unfortunately,” he said.

On June 7, 2014, after a brawl that lasted only seconds, Brandon Volpi spent the last moments of his life outside Les Suites Hotel, clutching his slashed throat, yelling, “Who did this? Who did this?”

Volpi was a good son with a big heart, the guy who always stood up for his friends, court heard during the trial. It was no different on that fateful night, when a friend asked to be escorted to a neighbouring hotel out of fear of then-18-year-old Hackett, who was waiting outside for him. 

“(Brandon) steps in to help people, and that’s how I raised him. He did a good thing, unfortunately it took his life,” his father said outside court on Friday. 

While escorting his friend, Volpi was sober and unarmed. Hackett was drunk — he’d been drinking for 14 hours straight — and had a knife. 

A brawl ensued that lasted about seven seconds, and the final, chilling images of Volpi’s life were captured on cellphone video taken by other grads from their hotel balconies above. Volpi’s throat was slashed, his heart stabbed by a knife. 

Surveillance video across town captured Hackett’s every move after the killing, from him fleeing the downtown murder scene, to hopping on an eastbound bus, to getting into the back seat of a cab out in Orléans. 

The case against Hackett was anchored in video and DNA evidence, including a bloody white T-shirt he discarded after the killing. Blood from both the victim and the killer were on the shirt. 

When Hackett was arrested a month later in Toronto, he was still wearing the same Michael Kors watch he had on the night of the murder. It still had his victim’s blood on it. In the days he lived as a fugitive, he checked online news stories about the killing, including a story that said he was wanted for the second-degree murder of Volpi.

He also researched how to move to Jamaica before police caught up to him.

The murder left Volpi’s family devastated. 

“It tore us apart. Without the support of my friends and family … I wouldn’t be here right now,” Danny Volpi said.

He said he’s going to keep his dead son’s memory alive, and while he’s pleased with the guilty verdict, he is worried about the killer’s sentencing. 

“I hope he gets what’s coming to him,” Volpi said.

Ottawa police Sgt. Darren Vinet, the lead detective in the case, was pleased with the guilty verdict.

“It was the right verdict and hopefully it will give the family a sense of closure. It was a sad case, with the senseless killing of a young man on his prom night and another young man going to prison for it,” said Vinet.

Hackett will be sentenced next month. The penalty carries an automatic life sentence but Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland still has to decide when Hackett will be eligible for parole. 

The jury endured five weeks of trial, including graphic evidence, and in closing arguments was urged to believe two wildly different interpretations of the key video that captured the brawl.

Prosecutors said it showed Hackett attacking Volpi with a knife. No, it proved his innocence, defence lawyers declared.

Defence lawyer Joseph Addelman said the prosecution’s case was built on uncertainty and riddled with reasonable doubt.

He told the jury the blurry cellphone video didn’t show a knife, let alone one in Hackett’s right hand. If anything, he said, the video vindicated his client because it showed him punching another man in the head during the brawl, with his right hand, and without any knife in it.

The blotchy video of the deadly brawl was dissected for the jury by the Crown and defence, frame-by-frame, in slow-motion, again and again, for hours.

The jury also heard from defence witness Danielle Saunders Gauthier. She was the only one, of all the witnesses, who testified that she saw a knife, and she placed it in another man’s hand. Addelman told the jury that prosecutors didn’t call her to the stand, and instead “chose to call a bunch of kids who didn’t see anything.”

Assistant Crown Attorney Michael Boyce told the jury a different story, one in which, he said, Hackett could clearly be seen in the video killing Volpi. He told the jury that Hackett intended not only to fight, but to kill.

In the end, the jury believed the Crown’s version of the doomed night.

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