Anastasia Kuzyk’s final, painful morning — Sept. 22, 2015 — was recounted in horrifying detail on Thursday as her sister testified at the trial of the man who killed her.

Eva Kuzyk recalled her darkest morning for the jury — six women, six men — saying it was her sister’s scream that brought her downstairs. Her sister was on the kitchen floor and there was a man heading outside, only to return with a gun. 

It seemed like there was no time. 

“I only had time to think we were both going to die,” she told court.

Then she heard gunfire.

She ran for her life, barefoot, through a muddy ditch and over a guardrail, to a road crew for help and called 911, a recording of which was played for the court.

Basil Borutski leaves in a police vehicle after appearing at the courthouse in Pembroke on Wednesday.

Basil Borutski, 60, is being tried on three counts of first-degree murder in the strangling death of Carol Culleton, 66, and the shooting deaths of Nathalie Warmerdam, 48, and Anastasia Kuzyk, 36. He is defending himself and has yet to stand and address the jury, or enter a plea of not guilty.

Eva Kuzyk’s 911 call silenced the courtroom.

“He has a gun. He’s at my sister’s house. He knocked her to the ground. He has a gun,” Eva Kuzyk tells the Ontario Provincial Police dispatcher.

The dispatcher then asks for her sister’s birthdate, and she gives it, then says, “Look … he shot, he’s shooting. That’s a gun. He’s shooting.”

She then tells the OPP dispatcher that she found her sister screaming and lying on the floor, and when the dispatcher asks for the address, Eva Kuzyk says it’s across the road from the Wilno Tavern, and the last house on the street, the one with the white picket fence. 

She tells the dispatcher: “They better hurry up because the guy’s got a f—–g gun.”

The OPP dispatcher assures her that every officer in the area is on their way, and fast.

Kuzyk, sitting in the back seat of the road crew’s pickup truck on Highway 60, made it clear there was no way she was going to take on a deranged man with a gun.

“I’m not in the house anymore. I had to get out of there, there was no weapon. How do you fight against a dude with a f—–g gun?”

In between tears, she tells the dispatcher, “He may have killed my sister.”

The dispatcher tries to comfort her, saying, “Eva, everyone’s on their way, OK. Take a deep breath.”

The foreman of the road crew also testified about that deadly morning.

Dwayne Meilleur, 52, recalled Kuzyk’s coming up to his truck. “She was really worried about her sister,” he testified.

The trial continues Monday.

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At 101 and stooped over his walker, Ernest Côté may have looked “frail and feeble”, but when a stranger barged into his New Edinburgh condo, bound him with duct tape and covered his head with a plastic bag, he fought to live, the Crown told his alleged assailant’s trial Wednesday.

Ian Bush left him to suffocate, but Côté — who could tell from the condensation on the bag that he had mere moments left — struggled to free himself, made it to his bedroom, seized a pair of scissors and cut a hole, James Cavanagh said during his opening statement to the jury Wednesday.

“Mr. Bush utterly underestimated Mr. Côté’s toughness and will to live,” Cavanagh said, noting that “appearances can be deceiving” because the decorated veteran of the Normandy invasion who went on to become a senior public servant was both tough and absolutely “calm, cool and collected.”

Second World War veteran Ernest Côté, photographed on June 5, 2014 in Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, France.

Côté can’t tell the jury what happened on Dec. 18, 2014. He died months later of unrelated causes, but “because he extracted himself from his deadly predicament” he was able to leave behind a videotaped statement to police, Cavanagh said.

Along with attempted murder, Bush, 62, is charged with robbery, unlawful confinement and firearm charges linked to two guns, one a sawed-off rifle Cavanagh said were discovered in subsequent searches.

The prosecutor pointed to a web of evidence against Bush that he said the jury will see and hear, including DNA tests, surveillance video from the lobby of Côté’s building and ATMs where he attempted to use Côté’s credit card. and evidence of travel recorded on bus transfers and on a Presto card to which an OC Transpo employee will testify.

Cavanagh said Côté began his routine that morning of working out on an exercise bike and was in his pyjamas and about to have breakfast when a man claiming to be from the City of Ottawa buzzed, asking to be let inside the building. The buzzer sounded again and the caller asked which apartment he was in. There was a knock at the door.

The “large, strong-looking” stranger took $500 in cash and a credit card, but Côté had the presence of mind to twice give the intruder the wrong PIN — it was really 1913, the year of his birth, but he scrambled the numbers.

Then the assailant bound Côté with duct tape and with the plastic bag over his head tightly sealed with more tape, Cavanagh said. He “worked desperately” to free one hand, injuring his wrist, then made his way to his bedroom and got the scissors as the bag inflated and deflated with every breath.

“He knew he didn’t have long,” Cavanagh said.

Côté cut a hole in the bag so he could breathe but didn’t remove it, knowing it might carry valuable forensic evidence, then called his son, Benoît, and 911. DNA on the duct tape indeed later linked it to Bush, Cavanagh said.

In a bid to identify the robber, police released to the media an image captured by a surveillance camera during an attempt to use Cote’s credit card at Place d’Orléans.

Bush’s common-law wife and adult children realized to their “shock and dismay” that the accused was the man in the picture, Cavanagh said. “They found it initially almost impossible to believe. It was quite horrifying.”

Three of them confronted Bush while a fourth called police who soon arrived to arrest him, Cavanagh said.

Searches of his home at 481 Valade Cr. in Orléans turned up a plastic bag containing a knife, duct tape and Côté’s credit card. Police also found mail to another resident in Côté’s building at 31 Durham Pvt. who the Crown believes was the intended target of the robbery but who was not at home that day. That man had noticed that his mail was going missing.

Letters found in the home also revealed that Bush was in debt to the tune of $20,000 yet had arranged to marry a woman in England with whom he was having a relationship. She’d already bought a wedding dress and rings, the prosecutor said. 

“Money wasn’t going to be a problem,” Bush told her, Cavanagh said.

The jury also listened to a voice from the grave.

In a 911 call played in court, Côté sounds calm and in seemingly good spirits for a man who had just been bound, gagged and left to suffocate. His voice is muffled from the bag over his over his head.

He reports the robbery and says he doesn’t need an ambulance and that he wasn’t injured. When asked his date of birth he says “the 12th of June 1913. Like I’m 101 plus.”

The dispatcher remarks: “That’s uh, incredible.”

“I’m still in good health,” the war vet says.

“Yeah, I hear that,” the dispatcher replies.

Then Côté, having just cheated death, laughs and then says, “This bastard” and blames himself for letting the man in without proper identification.

Côté said he wouldn’t be so stupid next time. Asked if the attacker had weapons, he laughed and replied, “No … just brute force.”

His son, Benoit Côté, who testified about his father’s ordeal, was the first to get to the condo, with police in tow. He found his father sitting in his walker, still on the phone with 911, and with the plastic bag over his head.

The son smiled and sometimes laughed from his front row seat in the gallery as he listened to his father’s voice in one of the most lighthearted 911 calls ever played at the Elgin Street courthouse.

The trial continues Thursday.

Ian Bush, the failed Ottawa consultant who was branded a monster after his May convictions for the horrific 2007 killings of three seniors — including a retired judge — had drafted a hit list of other people he despised enough to kill.

Bush, 61, had two hit lists — a long list and a short list. The short list of targets included two Ottawa judges, one from Ontario Court, the other from Superior Court. 

The triple killer’s No. 1 entry on the long list of targets was noted author and CBC journalist Carol Off. Others named on the long list of potential victims included officials from the Canada Revenue Agency, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, National Capital Commission, New Democratic Party, Liberal Party of Canada, unions, environment and human-rights groups and former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty.

Related

• Triple killer argues his own Jordan application at attempted murder trial
• CBC's Carol Off shocked to be on killer's hit list, not sure how she got there

The disturbing lists were found by police at Bush’s Ottawa home in 2015 and revealed in court this week at the convicted killer’s trial on a charge of attempted murder for the December 2014 attack 101-year-old Second World War veteran Ernest Côté.

The jury in the Côté trial didn’t hear that Bush had been convicted in May of three counts of first-degree murder in the 2007 killings of retired tax judge Alban Garon, his wife, Raymonde, and their friend Marie-Claire Beniskos. The seniors were hog-tied, beaten and suffocated with bags over their heads at their high-security condo in a home invasion. Enraged over a bitter tax feud, Bush targeted the retired judge in a plot that included stealing his money. The judge’s wife and friend were killed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Carol Off is host of CBC Radio’s As it Happens.

The CBC’s Off reacted to the news that she had been on one of Bush’s lists.

“It was somewhere between troubled and gobsmacked, um, it’s something that comes with the territory, you know, being a public person, so these things happen,” Off said on Thursday evening’s broadcast of As it Happens.

“But I I suppose, I mean, the first thing when he (reporter Gary Dimmock) sort of gave me more the details and he tried to give it to me the way that I’ll give it to you, which is that the good news is that the good news is that you are, I’m on the long list and not on the short list where he had an action plan for the people on his very short list. 

“So I’m on the long list, but I’m number one on the long list, which is the bad news, so … And then he said the really excellent news from, I guess, the point of being on any list, is that the man is going to be doing a lot of time and that it’s unlikely that he will be out in his lifetime.”

Related

• Triple killer argues his own Jordan application at attempted murder trial
• CBC's Carol Off shocked to be on killer's hit list, not sure how she got there

The jury is now sequestered and deliberating the fate of Bush on a charge of attempted murder for his attack on Côté, a war veteran who went on to become a high-profile public servant, serving two departments as deputy minister and later as Canada’s ambassador to Finland. Côté died in February 2015.

The decorated war veteran was not on Bush’s hit list, but his neighbour was. When the killer’s intended target wasn’t home, Bush decided on the fly to attack Côté instead after the frail, elderly man opened the door to his New Edinburgh apartment, according to Crown attorney James Cavanagh. Bush had presented himself as a city official, with fake identification for good measure.

Bush stormed in and Côté screamed. Bush bound his hands behind his back, taped his mouth shut, then put a plastic bag over his head, tightening it around his neck with duct-tape. Before leaving his latest victim to die, he stole Côté’s credit card, but it was useless because Côté — more angry than afraid — gave his attacker a fake PIN, the jury heard.

The killer had underestimated the war veteran, who managed to break free and cut a hole in the bag so he could breathe. He knew he didn’t have long because when he breathed, the bag deflated. He later told a detective: “He thought I was an old man. (That) I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I would be unconscious in no time.”

Second World War veteran Ernest Cote, photographed on June 5, 2014 in Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, France.

He also told the detective “I think the danger is that this person is a murderer — for having strangled me — for having put a bag over my head.”

Côté has been credited in court for cracking the 2007 triple murder case because he helped police finally identify the killer. Bush’s DNA was found on the tape he used to cover the war veteran’s mouth, and that DNA matched the profile left by the killer at the Garon condo seven years earlier.

In closing arguments this week, Cavanagh told the jury that Côté not only saved his own life — through the sheer strength of desperation — but also saved a number of other unsuspecting victims named on Bush’s hit list.

“This was just the start,” Cavanagh told the jury. 

The hit lists included names of people and institutions Bush despised. The short list had been whittled down, and unlike the long list, included targets’ addresses and bus routes he could use to stake out the job, according to the Crown. The short list also included the heading “Assignment” above some of the targets.

“This was a short list of victims,” Cavanagh declared.

Ian Bush didn’t leave much to chance, and he didn’t take a step without a detailed plan. In fact, he jotted down step-by-step how-to notes. Under the title “Process”, the triple killer listed what appeared to be all the usual ingredients for crime — from gaining access, to securing “parties, cash, plus credit cards and PINS, assets,” right down to leaving his “calling card.”

He had several fake ID cards in a wallet, including an RCMP inspector’s ID, a hydro worker’s ID, a federal government ID card and a delivery man’s ID.

And he also kept a tool kit for murder, which included duct tape, rubber gloves, a shotgun, rifle, ammunition and plastic bags (the ones with suffocation warnings), an imitation handgun, a pellet gun, a cleaver and rope.

Police also found the diary of a madman — a handwritten journal about his deep hatred for the tax man. He wrote that it was time to take tax money back by force, even if it meant killing people.

He demonized his targets and wrote that tax collectors were the “lowest form of humanity” and likened them to extortionists. 

Bush has admitted that he bound, gagged and robbed Côté but pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder charge.

Cavanagh told the jury there can be only one conclusion when an unmasked intruder storms your home with an arsenal of weapons and leaves you suffocating with a plastic bag over your head: he intends to kill you. Bush didn’t hide his face because he didn’t think Côté would live to identify him, Cavanagh said.

But defence lawyer Geraldine Castle-Trudel explained it to the jury another way, saying Bush didn’t intend to kill and only put the bag over Côté’s head so he couldn’t see his attacker. Bush targeted the New Edinburgh condo building because it’s typically occupied by relatively wealthy retirees — “perfect targets” because they are more frightened and less likely to fight back, the defence lawyer told the jury.

Bush is serving life in prison on the first-degree convictions in May. On that day, having just been scolded by a judge for the depths of his evil, a shackled Ian Bush left the courtroom grinning. It had taken the jury less than an hour and a half to decide his fate, and the trial judge told court that the crimes were inexplicable and steeped in gratuitous, spectacular violence.

In his latest trial, he’s been grinning and taking notes from the prisoner’s box, at least when he’s not sleeping in it like he did earlier this week.

He did not testify in his own defence.

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Sometimes a board meeting in Toronto is boring, and other times it’ll save your life. 

On a December morning in 2014, Ian Bush, a desperate and failed Ottawa consultant, set out for New Edinburgh to kill a target on his hit list. Bush, 62, had a deep-seated hatred for some institutions and personalities.

The woman at the top of his hit list, a senior human-rights executive, had died, so Bush transferred his murderous hatred to her husband, who became his No. 1 target.

Bush had already killed three defenceless seniors in 2007, including a retired judge, and seven years later he was out again, preying on the elderly in a twisted plot to rob and kill so he could save up enough money to leave his Ottawa family and travel to the U.K. to get married and start anew.

But his target was at that Toronto board meeting, so Bush chose another target on the fly, a neighbour. Not just any neighbour, but rather 101-year-old decorated Second World War veteran Ernest Côté, a random target he sorely underestimated. 

And on Friday, a jury — six women, six men — found Bush guilty of attempted murder, robbery, forcible confinement and gun charges for terrorizing and trying to kill Côté. 

Bush, with fake City of Ottawa identification, stormed into Côté’s condo and tied the man’s hands behind his back, taped his mouth shut, tightened a plastic bag over his head and left him to suffocate. He stole Côté’s credit card and demanded to know the PIN before leaving him to die. (Côté gave him a fake PIN.)

Ernest Côté as he appeared as a soldier in 1944 and in June 2014 when he attended the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing at Juno Beach.

But Côté, through the sheer determination to live, broke free and cut a hole through the bag before calling for help. In his 911 call, he sounded muffled because he hadn’t fully removed the duct tape from his mouth. The centenarian didn’t want to disturb the tape because it was key evidence. Côté knew the only time Bush had taken his gloves off was to peel the tape.

It was that key DNA evidence that cracked the unsolved 2007 killings of three seniors because it matched the DNA profile left at the scene of the triple murder. Bush was convicted in May on three counts of first-degree murder for the horrific 2007 killings of retired tax judge Alban Garon, his wife, Raymonde, and their friend, Marie-Claire Beniskos. They were hog-tied, beaten and suffocated with bags over their heads in a deadly home invasion. Enraged over a bitter tax feud, Bush had targeted the retired judge. The judge’s wife and friend were killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Côté, the decorated veteran who went on to become Canada’s ambassador to Finland, has been widely credited in court with cracking the triple 2007 murder case. The trial judge called him a true hero, and Assistant Crown Attorney James Cavanagh told the jury that Côté didn’t just save himself, but saved the lives of other unsuspecting victims on the killer’s list. 

Ernest Côté died months after the vicious home invasion from unrelated causes.

Minutes after the guilty verdict, the victim’s daughter, Lucie Côté, described her late father as modest.

“He did what he had to do. He was very quick-thinking. He was a man of duty. He would not have considered himself a hero,” his daughter said.

Bush is already serving life in prison for the three 2007 murders. He is scheduled to be sentenced on the attempted murder of Côté later this month.

The shackled killer left the courtroom on Friday afternoon exactly the way he had when he was last found guilty — grinning. 

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It’s not the first time former Hells Angel Michael Clairoux beat a drug rap down at the Elgin Street courthouse.

But this was different, this was a big joint-police force investigation targeting an Ontario Hells Angels drug trafficking ring that yielded more than 20 arrests — including two federal prison employees.

Last week, the case against its chief target — 43-year-old Michael Clairoux — fell apart after his defence lawyer, Diane Condo, won a stay in a successful motion for unreasonable delay — 37 months — because it took too long to get to trial.

“It’s been a very long and difficult time for my client, and he’s happy to have his life back,” Condo said.

The Crown had already dropped proceeds of crime and possession charges against Clairoux and an associate before their marijuana trafficking charges were dropped last week in Ottawa’s latest stay under the delay-to-trial Jordan ruling.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips said the case started out unusually slow when it hit court and spun its wheels for 10 months, with a lot of judicial pre-trial meetings in an uncomplicated case.

The federal Crown’s office wanted all the accused to be tried by the same judge even though they were selling different drugs in different cities at different times, the judge noted in his ruling to stay the charges.

The federal prosecutors set about having a case-management judge assigned and, for whatever reason, that took three months.

Clairoux was arrested on Feb. 25, 2015. The federal Crown’s initial disclosure of evidence was given to the defence on April 17, 2015. Full disclosure of all defence requests was handed over on Aug.14, 2017.

The Crown argued that the bulk of the delay between the assignment of a case-management judge and the time allowed to set a preliminary inquiry should be laid at the feet of the defence.

But the judge didn’t entirely agree and questioned the Crown attorney’s request for a case-management judge in the first place.

The judge failed to see why the cases needed to be presented as a mega-trial, let alone why they should all be tried by the same judge.

The Crown also argued that going with one judge for all would make it easier to decide sentencing ranges for all, if they were convicted.

The judge, a former Ontario Crown attorney, said the federal prosecutor’s arguments were valid but not compelling.

“The offences alleged involve the trafficking of marijuana, hardly a novel or hard-to-grasp scenario.”

The judge said the request by the Crown for a case-management judge created a delay.

“It is always harder to get time before a judge than any judge,” Phillips said.

The judge said the bottom line is that the simple case moved at a snail’s pace and breached Clairoux’s right to a timely trial. 

In this case, the prosecution was stayed in part because of bureaucratic delays.

“The Crown set up a case management system that was both unnecessary and ill-suited for the task at hand and stuck with it rather than bringing applications under the sections of the Code meant to accelerate the pace toward committal to stand trial in the Superior Court,” Phillips ruled.

The judge had one more thing to consider before staying the drug trafficking charges against Clairoux.

In an affidavit filed in court, Clairoux said his bail conditions for the past two years have been gruelling. 

In order to get bail, the now-free Clairoux was required to live under strict conditions with a surety in Ottawa public housing.

“There is mold in my bedroom and the mold is so bad that I have respiratory issues that include me having to use an inhaler. … My surety has complained about this problem to Ottawa Housing. … It has not been fixed to date. In addition, when it rains, my bedroom in the basement floods,” the former Hells Angel wrote in an August affidavit filed in court.

“I have overwhelming feelings of doom and persecution as I return to the room,” wrote Clairoux, who went on to say that while his bail conditions were aggravating his mental health issues, they were way better than jail.

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In a most rare scene at the Ottawa courthouse on Tuesday, a young police officer stood and read a victim-impact statement at a killer’s sentencing hearing. It wasn’t on behalf of the victim’s family, but rather the killer’s.

The officer’s older brother Daniel Adjetey-Nelson, a drug dealer with a thing for knives, was moments away from being condemned to prison after pleading guilty in the killing of much-loved Mitch Paquette, who was stabbed to death in front of his young grandchildren shortly after supper on Oct. 6, 2016 in Ottawa’s west end.

Victim-impact statements at sentencing hearings for killers are normally reserved for the victim’s family and friends, and introduced by the Crown. But in this case, seasoned defence lawyer Anne London-Weinstein filed the killer’s family statement and decided against reading it in a gallery filled with the victim’s friends and family, and there were many.

The statement from the killer’s family was intended for Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny to read before sentencing Daniel Adjetey-Nelson, 37.

But as it was being filed, the killer’s younger brother,  Windsor, Ont., police Cst. Jamie Adjetey-Nelson stood and told court he wanted to read it aloud. The judge let the police officer read the statement on behalf of the killer’s family.

Before he read the statement, he turned to face the gallery and offered condolences and prayers to the victim’s family.

“My family can’t begin to understand your loss,” Adjetey-Nelson said.

The police officer described the murder, at the hands of his brother, as brutal and tragic. He said there were no excuses for what his brother did. 

“I hope in the future to come, your thoughts of my brother pass and you focus on each other and the children,” the police officer told court. 

He said his brother took a difficult path in life. His brother’s criminal lifestyle kept them apart. 

On the night of the constable’s wedding, his older brother told him he’d be keeping his distance because he understood he had to change his ways to be part of his brother’s life. 

The police officer couldn’t speak about his brother as the killer in the headlines, but rather the brother he grew up with in a big family, five sisters, five brothers. He said his brother had a big playful heart, especially when it came to children. 

He also told court that it’s been difficult for both families, that of the victim and the killer.

Earlier at the sentencing, friends and family of Paquette read moving victim-impact statements, recalling the 55-year-old grandfather as a gentle soul who met a senseless, terrifying end.

They said Paquette lived a hard, but happy life. Everyone knew he had a learning disability except him. He couldn’t read or write but managed just fine as a mover, until age set in. He spent his last years in life helping his niece with her children and attending all of his medical appointments. He was learning how to be healthy and trying to become a better person, court heard.

Mitch Paquette, 55, was stabbed to death outside his Carlingtood townhouse.

They all said he was the uncle you could count on. They said Mitch Paquette was only one call away if you needed help, no matter how many buses he needed to take or miles he had to walk. And he always arrived with a smile.

They said he had a heart as big as the world and didn’t deserve to die.

Some said they’d never forgive Uncle Mitch’s killer, and others spoke of the agonizing pain he caused them.

And many spoke of the children, their lives shattered by the murder. Paquette was killed in the presence of his grandchildren — both under 10 at the time — outside his townhouse in the west-side Carlington neighbourhood. A handful of neighbourhood children also witnessed the killing.

The trouble began on Oct. 6, 2016 after Daniel Adjetey-Nelson complained that Paquette was smoking drugs around children outside. There was a push-shove, and then Adjetey-Nelson went inside a townhouse, put his boots on and grabbed a large kitchen knife only to return outside and stab an unarmed Paquette in the throat.

In one of the more intense victim-impact statements, the mother of Adjetey-Nelson’s children — who witnessed the murder — looked at him in the prisoner’s box and said, “Are you even going to look at me?” It wasn’t about her, but rather her children. The killer’s children. 

One said he wanted his dad to stay in jail for fear he would sneak into their home and hurt them.

The other child drew a crying face. His mother held the drawing up to the prisoner’s box glass but Adjetey-Nelson kept his head down, as he did for all of the victim-impact statements that were read in court.

The judge had to ask him to lift his head up when she was sentencing him.

Moments before he was sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder, Adjetey-Nelson stood and addressed the court and said he was sorry for what he had done.

“No matter what happened that day, I was wrong for what I did,” the killer said.

The man he killed was a good man who didn’t deserve to die, he said.

He also said he hoped one day his victim’s family, and his own, can forgive him.

Adjetey-Nelson was on bail for a knife attack on a woman when he killed Paquette.

He was sentenced to life in prison and will be eligible for parole after serving for 10 years, 10 months and two days. 

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One of the darkest moments in Ottawa’s tight-knit Congolese community unfolded on July 3, 2015, when a young woman was viciously degraded by jealous attackers who kidnapped her and later pinned her down and applied hair-removal cream to her vagina, only to broadcast it on Facebook.

Sadly, there were a handful of online videos — viewed around the world — that showed the young, naked woman crying and screaming as she was attacked. 

This is the police theory in a case that has shocked Ottawa’s Congolese community.

In court Thursday, Assistant Crown Attorney Louise Tansey said the videos were traumatizing to watch. 

The kidnapping and sex attack trial of Eunice “Chou Chou” Ilunga, 43, Safi “Lolo” Mahinja, 27, Sandrine Tomba-Kalema, 37, and Nina “Milka”Raul, 34, began on Thursday.

In a preview of Crown evidence to be heard at trial, Tansey detailed a terrifying, videotaped attack of a 21-year-old woman who was targeted after she fooled around with another woman’s boyfriend.

After the kidnapping and assault, the accused filmed a video of themselves celebrating the vicious attack, according to the Crown. In this video, the accused are seen and heard singing along to a song on the radio as they are driving away. They made up their own lyrics to Brigade’s Affaire de la rencune Rondo, and by doing so documented their attack, according to the Crown. 

They left their target’s home ransacked after they kidnapped her, according to the Crown.

One of the accused’s sisters has told this newspaper that her sister, Nina Raul, was only trying to help the alleged victim, not harm her. 

The Crown’s first witness on Thursday was a Congolese man who was training to be a police officer at the time. A friend of his had sent him some of the videos. He, like others who saw the videos on Facebook, told police.

None of the allegations have been proven in court and all have pleaded not guilty. The trial continues Friday. 

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It’s one thing to beat a rap for armed robbery, but quite another to do it when you don’t show up for trial.

On Nov. 30, Ottawa defence lawyer Jason Gilbert won his client a jury acquittal even though she had absconded.

In fact, it’s not clear if Hibo Hassan even knows she was acquitted in absentia, because her lawyer hasn’t been able to reach her. The onetime sex-trade worker showed up for jury selection but absconded before the trial started hearing evidence.

A bench warrant for her arrest was issued but police couldn’t find her and Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith ruled that she would be tried in absentia.

In such a case, the jury is allowed to draw an adverse inference from the accused’s absence.

Even the successful lawyer told the jury his client may have absconded for fear she’d be found guilty. But it turns out, she had nothing to fear. A jury acquitted her after a day and a half of deliberations.

The criminal case began after another sad night on Montreal Road in Vanier, when Hassan approached Manuel Carvalho to first bum a smoke, then to ask if he wanted to keep the party going back at his apartment.

Carvalho had been out for beers on the Vanier strip and testified that he and Hassan grabbed a Capital Taxi and went back to his place, with one of her girlfriends. He poured whiskey and testified he just wanted to play music and dance.

He testified it wasn’t about money-for-sex and, under oath, said he didn’t know the word “pimp.”

The police theory, later adopted by assistant Crown attorney Jason Neubauer, is that after Hassan had two drinks at Carvalho’s apartment, she grabbed a kitchen knife and demanded money. He said he didn’t have any but she grabbed his wallet and found some.

He told court that he threw a chair and the knife fell out of her hand, that she ran away with her girlfriend and he called 911.

Carvalho was a lousy Crown witness, and he had a criminal record that smothered his credibility. It turns out that Carvalho, the complainant, was sentenced to five years in a penitentiary for stabbing another man a few years ago. That man still lives in fear that he will be attacked again.

Under cross-examination by Jason Gilbert, Carvalho denied facts of the crime even though he had pleaded guilty to them and served his sentence. The jury also heard that Carvalho had just been convicted of another assault two months before the November trial. The jury also heard that Carvalho told police in 2015 that Hassan had stolen $150 from his wallet but at trial he said it was $40.

His credibility shot, the judge told the jury to treat Carvalho’s testimony with caution.

The police tried to establish that he had been robbed at knifepoint but the jury didn’t buy the alleged victim’s story — even in the absence of the accused. Hassan’s DNA was on only the whiskey glass, not the kitchen knife and police didn’t analyze Carvalho’s wallet for prints.

On winning an acquittal in absentia, Gilbert said: “As a lawyer, conducting a trial without a client is an unusual experience. Normally I have my client to work off of, and to take instruction from. In this case, I had to rely solely on my legal training, experience and instinct.

“I’m glad the jury was able to set aside my client’s absence, and arrive at a just verdict in acquitting her.”

Hassan might only find out she won her case by reading this story, the lawyer said.

gdimmock@postmedia.com

www.twitter.com/crimegarden

The last time her attacker came for her, it had been outside a nightclub, while wielding a screwdriver.

The young Congolese woman said she had left the club in June 2015 to avoid trouble with a jealous rival, only to find it outside, when her attacker tried to force her way into the woman’s car.

The woman told court Tuesday she feared she’d be strangled and managed to literally kick her attacker out of the vehicle with her heels.

But a month later, on July 3, 2015, the young woman’s jealous rival returned with friends, this time to the woman’s Donald Street apartment. The victim was abducted at knifepoint and later degraded in a sex-shame attack that was broadcast on Facebook.

This is the account of the young woman who took the stand at the kidnapping and sex-shame attack trial of four Congolese women.

It’s a case that has shaken Ottawa’s tight-knit Congolese community. 

Related

• Ottawa sex-shame attack was videotaped, posted on Facebook

When asked to tell the truth, the woman replied: “Nothing but the truth.”

She testified she was in her bathroom when she heard the key turning her apartment door lock open.

She said the accused ringleader, Eunice “Chou Chou” Ilunga, 43, hit her in the eye right away and that she was armed with a knife.

The young woman remained remarkably composed Tuesday, but was crying as she left court at the lunch break.

The case against Ilunga, Safi “Lolo” Mahinja, 27, Sandrine Tomb-Kalema, 37, and Nina “Milka” Raul, 34, is anchored in videos of the attacks that court heard left the young woman fearing for her life.

In the first videos, the young woman is confined in her bathroom and berated for having sex with one of the accused’s ex-boyfriends. The woman is crying.

Before she was escorted out of her apartment at knifepoint (no knife is seen on security video from lobby), she says they threatened and intimidated her and slashed her furniture for good measure.

The other videos — which were posted online — show her undressed on a bed as someone applies hair-removal cream to her pubic hair.

The woman told court that she didn’t know that she had dated the same man her onetime friend and roommate had.

When asked about the first attack in the parking lot, she testified through a translator: “I have no idea. I don’t know what the reason was.”

Though the videos were played and heard in court, they were only seen by the judge, complainant and accused.

Assistant Crown Attorney Louise Tansey said the videos were traumatizing to watch.

In another video after the attack, the accused filmed themselves celebrating. In this video, the accused are seen and heard singing along to a song on the radio as they are driving away. They made up their own lyrics to Brigade’s Affaire de la rencune Rondo, and by doing so documented their attack, according to the Crown.

They left their target’s home ransacked after they kidnapped her, according to the Crown.

One of the accused’s sisters has told this newspaper that her sister, Nina Raul, was only trying to help the alleged victim, not harm her.

None of the allegations has been proven in court and all of the accused have pleaded not guilty at the judge-alone trial.

gdimmock@postmedia.com

www.twitter.com/crimegarden

Nina Raul finally smiled.

She walked out of Courtroom 33 on Wednesday afternoon, having finally been cleared in a vicious, degrading 2015 sex-shame attack on a young Ottawa woman that was broadcast on Facebook.

After two years of being one of the monsters of the headlines, she walked out with her head held high. 

“She is happy and relieved and has always maintained her innocence,” said defence lawyer Kirstin Macrae.

The Crown stayed kidnapping and sex assault charges against Raul, 35, after the alleged victim testified on Wednesday that Raul was, in fact, only trying to help, not harm her like the other accused. The accused’s sister had also said over the past two years Raul was only trying to help the alleged victim.

On Wednesday, the alleged victim testified that not only did Raul help her during the attack, she also helped her escape. 

Minutes later, the Crown stayed all charges against Raul.

Raul, has now been subpoenaed by the Crown to testify against her one-time co-accused in an alleged revenge plot in which a 21-year-old woman was targeted for allegedly having sex with another woman’s boyfriend. 

The woman told court that she didn’t know that she had dated the same man her one-time friend and roommate had.

She testified she was in her bathroom when she heard a key turning in her apartment door. She said the accused ringleader, Eunice “Chou Chou” Ilunga, 43, armed with a knife, hit her in the eye. Ilunga remains on trial along with Safi Mahinja, and Sandrine Tomb-Kalema in a case that has shaken the city’s Congolese community.

In the first videos, the young woman is seen confined in her bathroom and berated for having sex with one of the accused’s ex-boyfriends. Before she was escorted out of her apartment, she said, they threatened and intimidated her and slashed her furniture for good measure.

The other videos — which were posted online — show her undressed on a bed as someone applies hair-removal cream to her pubic hair.

On Wednesday, the alleged victim testified that Raul wiped the cream from her, helped her to escape and gave her a phone to call the police. She said she was “deeply shocked” when videos of the attack, in which the woman is seen naked and crying, were posted to Facebook. 

Though the videos were played and heard in court, they were only seen by the judge, complainant and accused. Assistant Crown attorney Louise Tansey said the videos were traumatizing to watch.

In a video taken after the attack, the accused are celebrating, singing along to a song on the radio as they are driving away. They made up their own lyrics to a song and by doing so documented their attack, according to the Crown.

They also left their target’s home ransacked after they kidnapped her, according to the Crown.

None of the allegations has been proven in court and all of the accused have pleaded not guilty at the judge-alone trial.

Steven Mair, 29, killed the person he loved the most.

The former biochemistry student and licensed pilot woke up at 5 a.m. on Aug. 18 in a state of fear and paranoia. He felt like he was still sleeping, only he wasn’t.

In a psychotic break, Mair thought the Japanese were bombing and he had to protect his mother before they were “nuked.” He was also yelling about the “Jews” before he beat his mother, Rachelle Mair, to death with a baseball bat at her Sandy Hill apartment. 

A neighbour who called 911 told the operator Mair could be heard screaming that he had killed his mother.

Rachelle Mair, the victim in Ottawa’s 11th homicide of 2017.

Police found him pacing the hallway of their apartment building, rambling like a madman. He was sweaty and holding a bloody baseball bat.

On Thursday, Mair — in a joint submission endorsed by Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny — was found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder for the killing of his mother, described by friends and family as a beautiful woman who spent her free time helping immigrants adjust to a new life in Ottawa.

“He loved his mother more than anyone in the world,” said a sympathetic Mark Holmes, an assistant Crown attorney assigned to the case.

Mair had been charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of his biggest advocate, who had taken him in and was paying the bills.

In a police interview hours after the killing, Mair said he would never fully understand what he did. 

“How did I f— up so badly?” he asked aloud in the police interview. 

Everyone in court — from his defence lawyer Ian Carter to the victim’s family to the judge — agreed that Mair was not criminally responsible. His delusions seemed real and a psychiatrist concluded that he had experienced a mental break from reality and had no idea what he was doing.

Steven Mair.

Mair broke down in the prisoner’s box as he listened to details about the morning he killed his “dear” mother.

When the judge read her verdict, he told court that he didn’t want to say anything.

“We all weep for you and your mother. I’m very sorry this happened to you and your mother,” Ratushny said.

She ruled that Mair had not committed any crime and ordered that he be released from jail and instead be held in a secure wing at the Royal Ottawa hospital.

gdimmock@postmedia.com

If the big RCMP case against accused terrorism financier and star recruiter Awso Peshdary ever gets to trial, the credibility of the Mounties’ star witness — a paid agent — will be severely tested.

And it should come as no surprise to the RCMP. That’s because the Canadian Security Intelligence Service assessed Abdullah Milton, the prized agent, two years before he was paid at least $700,000 to infiltrate an Ottawa terrorism network linked to Peshdary. 

The assessment concluded Milton was parasitic and psychopathic. 

CSIS first approached Milton back in January 2011 and he was later assessed for reliability in two interviews in 2012. Milton, now 39, was first interviewed on Oct. 30, 2012 for three hours, then again on Oct. 31, 2012 for five hours. Beyond the interviews, government agents also investigated his private life.

The Muslim convert, on welfare and teetering on bankruptcy at the time, went on to become a CSIS asset before working for the RCMP. 

Three young Ottawa men — Vanier twins Ashton and Carlos Larmond along with Suliman Mohamed — are now serving prison sentences after entering surprise guilty pleas earlier this year to RCMP terrorism charges that were built on evidence provided by Milton. 

Awso Peshdary is charged with participation in the activity of a terrorist group and with facilitating an activity for a terrorist group.

Because of their guilty pleas, no trial was held and no one heard from the star witness. 

But now, as Peshdary’s lawyers prepare his defence, recent court filings reveal never-heard-before details about Milton, including CSIS’s “Top Secret” assessment of him.   

The court filings provide an unprecedented, public look into the government’s screening of a recruited anti-terrorism agent. Here are some highlights of the CSIS assessment into the character, mind, and behaviour of Milton before he was hired. 

• Milton has a tendency to be parasitic with a psychopathic flavour. He will do whatever he needs to get what he wants. 
• Milton was charged with assault and forcible confinement in Sept. 2001. He was also charged with spousal assault in 2010. The charges were withdrawn, and in one of the cases, the RCMP agent signed a peace bond to stay clear of his wife.
• He gave police a fake address when signing papers to win release on the spousal assault charges.
• He has been married at least seven times and has at least four children. 
• He has significant mental health and personality disorders. These conditions are responsible for the instability and chaos in his day-to-day routine, relationships, career, finances, and religion. 
• Milton is addicted to porn. He finds it morally wrong but can’t stop watching it. He has difficulty with the Islamic concept of “lowering his gaze.”
• He is immature, selfish, narcissistic and almost “child-like.”
• He appears to have little sympathy for his wife and children and instead treats them like objects.
• Milton’s interactions with his wife and children have a “parasitic quality.”
• He had a chaotic childhood. He was raised in an abusive home and got kicked out for violence.
• Instead of studying, he drank and did drugs and dropped out of school. He got one of his high school girlfriends pregnant, twice.
• He converted to Islam at 28.
• He has significant debt and an unstable work history.
• Milton has an inability to save money and spends it right away on things like suits and fedoras. 
• He accepts little responsibility and has poor insight. He is impulsive and vulnerable to influence and manipulation of those around him.
• He bottles up his feelings, only to eventually explode.
• He felt there is discrimination against Muslims in Canada. 
• Milton’s version of events were sometimes at odds with CSIS’s own investigation into his life.

Earlier this year, an Ontario Superior Court judge forced CSIS to reveal the assessment to Peshdary’s legal team. And now, the assessment of Milton is included in new court filings related to a defence motion for further third-party records from CSIS. 

While the criminal charges against Peshdary stem from an RCMP investigation, Solomon Friedman, Peshdary’s prominent defence lawyer, fought for the secret records from CSIS because the paid agent previously worked for the spy agency from 2011 to 2013.

Milton had been recruited to spy on Peshdary back then. They worked together at Walmart and they prayed together.

CSIS lawyers fought to keep its records secret but Justice Julianne Parfett forced them to hand over the files. 

Friedman successfully argued that the records were vital, and without full disclosure of all CSIS documents, he would be fishing in the dark and “blindfolded” from meaningful cross-examination. How could he possibly launch a full defence to the charges without full disclosure?Friedman argued.

Friedman also argued that the records should be disclosed because Milton isn’t a protected source, but rather a paid police agent who has waived his privacy privilege and has agreed to testify against Peshdary at trial. Friedman said he intends to question the agent’s motives, ranging from financial to whether he was a neutral observer or an active participant in the terror network.

With the release of some of the top-secret documents about the RCMP agent, Friedman has laid the foundation for what could be a blistering cross-examination of a vulnerable star witness.

And the lawyer is not done yet, as his recent motion is to gain access to more disclosure from CSIS.

As it stands, some of Milton’s story is already known, revealed through previous court filings. 

Milton says he fell into the spy business by accident. CSIS paid him a visit in January 2011 after he posted photos he took of Parliament Hill. He photoshopped the Canadian flag atop the Peace Tower, and substituted it with the flag of a Muslim extremist group. Milton posted the photos — including one of the Saudi embassy — three months before CSIS came calling. That Milton was under investigation by CSIS will be a central issue if the case goes to trial because it goes to the heart of the agent’s credibility, Friedman argued in submissions earlier this year.

Milton went on to work for CSIS, and they kept it a secret — even from the Mounties.

When the Mounties were investigating Peshdary in 2013, they expanded their terrorism probe to include one of his associates — Milton — not knowing that he was actually a CSIS asset. CSIS informed the RCMP about their asset, then cut its ties with Milton and handed him over to the RCMP in 2014.

Overnight, Milton went from working part-time jobs as a janitor and paintball referee to a highly-paid RCMP agent. He loved spending money fast, and the Mounties gave him bags and bags of cash. (The Mounties videotaped some of the big-money transactions for their records.)

Milton’s work is credited for convictions against Mohamed and the Larmond twins. None of them took their cases to trial and none of them had access to the secret documents about Milton. They pleaded guilty in August to plotting to leave the country to join ISIL.

Milton, who wore a wire against his Ottawa targets, ended up getting some money for nothing — $250,000 to be exact. It was a cash bonus, paid in advance, to testify at the preliminary hearings that never happened.

The case against Peshdary is anchored in the same agent’s spy work. Peshdary has pleaded not guilty to all charges and intends on fighting the case. 

Milton first started keeping an eye on Peshdary for CSIS 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. Peshdary, 26, was charged in February 2015 with recruiting, financing and facilitating terrorism.

John Maguire

The RCMP believe Peshdary’s star recruit was John Maguire, who 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 recent court filings, including Milton’s analysis that Peshdary had mellowed. He said he “used to be more radical” but “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 related to the Maguire case. 

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 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.

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.

Peshdary’s lawyer is also requesting a copy of the sworn affidavit for a CSIS Act warrant.

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

gdimmock@postmedia.com

http://www.twitter.com/crimegarden

Joshua Boyle, rescued along with his family in October after five years in captivity in Afghanistan, is now in an Ottawa jail on charges of sexual assault, forcible confinement and administering a noxious drug.

Boyle, 34, spent New Year’s Day at the Innes Road jail after Ottawa police arrested him after an alleged series of disturbing crimes dating back to Oct. 14 — two days after Boyle called his family in Canada to tell them he had been freed.  

Boyle was abducted by a Taliban-linked group while on what he described as a backpacking trip. His children were born and raised in captivity until their rescue by Pakistani commandos.

The son of an Ottawa tax court judge, Boyle had previously been in the public spotlight because of his brief marriage to Omar Khadr’s older sister and the work of the Canadian government to secure his release. He and his family met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month following their rescue.

Boyle is also charged with misleading police on Dec. 30 after reporting that someone was suicidal and missing.

Police are alleging that Boyle concocted the story to “divert suspicion from himself.”

In all, Boyle is facing 15 criminal charges, ranging from assault, to sexual assault, to forcible confinement and administering a noxious drug (trazodone, an antidepressant with anti-anxiety and sleep-inducing effects).

A lawyer for Boyle, meanwhile, called the situation “a completely new experience for Mr. Boyle, as he has never been in trouble before.

“He is presumed innocent of all of the charges. At this early stage, we have not received any of the evidence in this case, but we are eager to receive any evidence there is and look forward to defending Mr. Boyle against these charges in court.

“He is eager for the full story to be presented at the appropriate time in court.”

This newspaper has a policy of not identifying sex assault complainants, and none of the charges has been proved in court.

Boyle was held in jail after his New Year’s Day court hearing.

When Boyle and his family were released after five years of captivity, American intelligence officials publicly said they had long suspected Boyle had entered Afghanistan with the desire to hook up with “Taliban-affiliated militants.”

Despite the length of their captivity, no ransom was ever demanded by their kidnappers.

When asked by ABC News following his rescue why he was in Afghanistan, Boyle refused to answer.

Boyle did say in a public statement at the time that the Haqqani network in Afghanistan had killed his infant daughter and raped his wife during their captivity.

“The stupidity and evil of the Haqqani network’s kidnapping of a pilgrim and his heavily pregnant wife engaged in helping ordinary villagers in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorizing the murder of my infant daughter,” he said.

The Taliban denied Boyle’s accusations.

In another interview, Boyle said his earlier relationship with Zaynab Khadr taught him not to judge a book by its cover.

“Are there any of us honestly able to say that we’ve never uttered any phrases which, if they ran beside our name in the paper every month for five years, would paint an unflattering mental image in the public’s perception?” he asked.

“Let he without sin cast the first stone.”

The Canadian government applauded Boyle’s new-found freedom back in October.

“We are greatly relieved that after being held hostage for five years, Joshua Boyle and his American wife Caitlan Coleman Boyle, as well as their young children, have been released and are safe,” Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a release on Oct. 12, 2017.

“Canada has been actively engaged with the governments of the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan and we thank them for their efforts.”

On Tuesday night, there was a neat, hand-printed sign on the door of the Boyles’ Ottawa apartment, saying: “Hello! We are not making any statements to the media at this time. Please respect our privacy. Thank you.”

Neighbours Sharon Kite and Johanne Aubé, who live in adjacent apartments on the top floor of the four-storey walk-up, said the Boyles and their three children moved in about a month ago.

Caitlan Boyle slid letters under everyone’s door asking if they’d be willing to let the Boyles share their internet. 

“She said they were only here temporarily so we’re hoping to be able to use someone’s Wi-Fi,” Aubé said.

Kite and Aubé said there was something intriguing and mysterious about their new neighbours, especially Caitlan, who wore a hijab and had one child in a carriage and another strapped in a carrier on her chest.

“I’ve seen them coming and going. They were always very friendly. They’d always say hello,” Aubé said.

Police came to the apartment around 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 30 and went door to door talking to other tenants, Aubé said. She’d spent the night watching movies and heard nothing. Later she saw police officers inside the Boyles’ apartment.

Kite was coming home Tuesday night when she heard news reports that Joshua Boyle had been arrested and charged.

In a statement to ABC News, Caitlan Coleman Boyle, said, “I can’t speak about the specific charges, but I can say that ultimately it is the strain and trauma he was forced to endure for so many years and the effects that that had on his mental state that is most culpable for this.

“Obviously, he is responsible for his own actions,” she wrote in the statement, “but it is with compassion and forgiveness that I say I hope help and healing can be found for him. As to the rest of us, myself and the children, we are healthy and holding up as well as we can.”

Related

• A chronology of Joshua Boyle and his family

With files from Blair Crawford

gdimmock@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/crimegarden

An earlier version of this story included comments by Ottawa police Chief Charles Bordeleau that were not related to this case.

Joshua Boyle’s long trip through the criminal justice system began Wednesday in a small Ottawa courtroom in a disturbing sex-crimes case that has drawn worldwide attention.

The case against Boyle is still in its early stages, but Ottawa police have charged him with 15 offences — ranging from assault to sex assault to forcible confinement — against two alleged victims.

The identities of the victims — both living in Ottawa — are shielded by law.

Boyle, 34, was held in jail after his brief court appearance. His legal team is now working on getting him bail, while he awaits trial on the charges, which include drugging, uttering death threats and misleading police on Dec. 30, when he allegedly reported that someone was missing and suicidal.

The police say Boyle concocted the missing-persons report to divert suspicion from himself.

It’s not the first time the accused sex criminal has made international headlines.

Related

• Facts about former Afghanistan hostage Joshua Boyle
• Rage, pain and grief: Can former hostages return to normal?
• Updated: Joshua Boyle's journey from Afghanistan hostage to accused sex criminal
• Boyles vs. World: Twitter account offers puzzling window on family

Boyle, along with his pregnant wife, was held captive in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Taliban-linked militants for five years before their rescue and return to Canada.

Boyle, the son of a judge, appeared on closed circuit video from the jail Wednesday wearing an orange jumpsuit. He had a piece of folded paper in his left breast pocket and looked clean-cut despite having been at this city’s notorious Innes Road jail since New Year’s Day. He stood quietly until the end of his brief court hearing when he politely asked Ontario Court Justice Norm Boxall if he could leave the camera station at the jail.

Boyle has said he and his pregnant wife were backpacking when they were abducted. Boyle has told the press that his children were born and raised in captivity.

When Boyle and his family were rescued by Pakistani commandos after being tipped to their whereabouts by the CIA, American intelligence publicly stated they had long suspected that Boyle and his wife had entered Afghanistan with the desire to hook up with “Taliban-affiliated militants.”

Despite the length of their captivity, it’s still unclear if a ransom was ever demanded by their alleged kidnappers.

ALSO: Former Afghanistan captive Joshua Boyle charged with sex assault, forcible confinement

When asked by ABC News following his rescue why he was in Afghanistan, Boyle refused to answer.

Boyle also recounted a horrific ordeal in which he told the press that his American wife had been raped by the Taliban. He has also said an “infant daughter” was murdered. It is an account that has caused a stir with some questioning it publicly. The Taliban has  denied claims that his wife was raped and have claimed the baby was miscarried naturally.

Boyle now stands charged with serious sexual crimes dating back to Oct. 14, just days after his family’s rescue and return to Ottawa.

If his credibility wasn’t already being questioned widely on social media, he is now charged with deliberately misleading the police in this explosive crime case in which the police say he lied to cover his tracks when he reported that one of his victims was missing and suicidal.

The couple and their children went Boyle’s parents home in Smiths Falls, Ont., after being rescued, but had been living in an Ottawa apartment recently. 

Boyle and his family recently met Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Boyles tweeted photos and commentary of the visit with Trudeau the week of Dec. 13.

Photos show Trudeau cuddling Ma’idah Grace Makepeace and Najæshi Jonah rearranging the furniture, while the Boyles described the visit as a “wonderful experience.”

On Wednesday, a government spokesman said the meeting was at the request of the Boyles and that Trudeau is willing to meet with any Canadian who has gone through such harrowing circumstances.

Eric Granger, one of Boyle’s lawyers, stressed to this paper that the accused is presumed innocent of all of the charges against him.

“At this early stage we have not received any of the evidence in this case, but we are eager to receive any evidence there is and look forward to defending Mr. Boyle against these charges in court,” Granger said.

“He is eager for the full story to be presented at the appropriate time in court.”

Boyle remains in jail awaiting his next court appearance, scheduled for Jan 8.

None of the charges has been tested in court.

MORE: A chronology of Joshua Boyle and his family

gdimmock@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/crimegarden 

Ottawa police were investigating a homicide Tuesday night after a young man was gunned down near a housing complex on Paul Anka Drive.

Tarek Dakhil, 23, was identified as the victim of the city’s first homicide of 2018.

Tarek Dakhil, 23, was fatally shot on Paul Anka Drive Jan. 9.

Police said that patrol officers responded to reports of gunfire at about 8:30 p.m.

They found the victim in “severe” medical distress and started first aid until paramedics took over and rushed him to the hospital where he died of his injuries.

Several teens — including friends of the victim — gathered across the street after the victim’s family called to say he had been shot.

Tarek Dakhil, 23, was fatally shot on Paul Anka Drive Jan. 9.

It was not clear whether police had a suspect in custody or were hunting one down.

The police response was quick with multiple units — marked and unmarked — dispatched  to the crime scene.

Ottawa police guard crime scene on Paul Anka Drive, Tuesday night, January 9, 2017. 

Ottawa police were searching the city Tuesday night for a black truck in connection with the homicide.

It was the second shooting incident in the area in less than two months.

On Nov. 30, a 26-year-old man was hospitalized in serious but stable condition after he was shot near Uplands and Paul Anka drives at around 2 a.m.

Anyone with information is asked to call the major crime unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 5493. Anonymous tips can be made to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or by downloading the Ottawa police app.

With files from Megan Gillis

syogaretnam@postmedia.com 

When Jim Watson was working as a young Hill staffer on Sparks Street in the 1980s, he often worked late and found himself walking down the pedestrian mall after nightfall. Just him and the roll of tumbleweed. 

The mayor has heard all of the tired clichés about Ottawa — the capital city that rolls up its sidewalks at night and that really tired one that calls it the town that fun forgot. The City of Ottawa has long talked about livening up the street, and now the mayor wants to use the street mall as a “showcase” and make it a “year-round destination” for residents and tourists alike. 

“There are no bad ideas,” Watson said at a Saturday town hall on the future of Sparks Street. 

Beyond the standard more benches, bushes and washrooms, the city is casting a wide net in its mission to animate the street.

One by one, residents and business owners took turns talking about what they’d like to see for the future of the historic street, named after an Irish labourer who saved his earnings back in 1823 to buy what is now the commercial core of Ottawa’s downtown.

Jason Komendat of Retro-Rides.ca voices his opinion about how to improve Sparks Street.

Residents and business owners also had the opportunity to write down their ideas on a big photo map of the street. Some asked for more arts and entertainment programming but, as one resident wrote, “don’t over-program.”

They dreamed of affordable rent to “bring in the hipsters.”

And a lot of people just said they want more people on the street.

“I want more people living there. If people lived there, you’d have more services and shops. If you’re staying at a hotel, there’s not even a place to go buy milk,” said Riek van den Berg, a retired nurse who “cares about my city.”

She, like some others in the crowd of about 60, described the Stanley Cup monument as an eyesore and said it was inappropriate to install it at the Elgin Street entrance. For folks who aren’t sports fans, she said it’s a turnoff. 

The public gathered for a town hall meeting on the revitalization of Sparks Street on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2018 at city hall.

“There’s so much potential for Sparks to become a people place,” Coun. Catherine McKenney told the crowd.

One resident said the street needs more children and for city staff to think about what attracts children. 

Some spoke about winter designs for the street, saying too much in Ottawa is focused on its warmer seasons. They spoke about a glass roof and heated sidewalks — even a Christmas market like the bustling one in Toronto’s distillery district.

Business owners expressed the need for more parking and later hours for vehicles to make commercial deliveries on the street. 

Riek van den Berg writes down her suggestions on a photo map of Sparks Street.

The street is not without some success, with a so-called power-player restaurant and a few decent pubs.

Many agreed, including McKenney, that one of the biggest challenges to make Sparks a “key place” is how to get people to live there, not just travel through.

The push to revitalize the street comes with light-rail stations due to soon open nearby.

Saturday’s public consultation was led by Watson — a sign that the city means business when it’s exploring the future of Sparks Street, the country’s first outdoor pedestrian mall.

Anyone who couldn’t make the town hall meeting can have their say at ottawa.ca/sparksstreetplan or by emailing mysparksstreet@ottawa.ca .

gdimmock@postmedia.com

There was no shortage of opinions left behind at the town hall.

Ottawa police said Sunday there were investigating a shots-fired call reported on Priam Way in Bells Corners on Saturday night.

Police responded around 9:30 p.m. and found shell casings and a car that had been hit with bullets.

Nobody was shot and police didn’t have anyone in custody.

Not every deadly car crash is a crime, and the one that claimed the accomplished life of Kouchi Matsumoto in 2013 has been ruled in court as a tragic accident.

Matsumoto, 70, a retired Carleton University chemistry professor and pioneering member of the city’s Soka Gakkai Buddhist community, had survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and several major earthquakes only to meet an untimely death in the northbound lane of Woodroffe Avenue on May 26, 2013.

It was around 5:30 p.m. and Matsumoto and his wife, Lynda, were travelling north when Suranjan Arasaratnam, 34, was exiting the Queensway. He took the southbound off-ramp too fast and lost control of his black BMW on the dry road, drifted across two lanes, jumped the median and collided head-on with the Matsumotos’ Hyundai Accent. Matsumoto was killed instantly. His wife, then 66, was seriously injured. 

Police issued a news release at the time saying speed was a factor. Later, they charged Arasaratnam with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving.

The police case, presented in court by the Crown, was that Arasaratnam’s driving was reckless and a marked departure from the norm. 

But after weighing all the evidence, Ontario Superior Court Justice Marc Labrosse acquitted Arasaratnam of all criminal charges, saying he was going too fast, but not speeding excessively.

“I conclude that Mr. Arasaratnam failed to negotiate the end of the off-ramp as a result of both going too fast and misjudging the curb or by some other inadvertence. He did not, however, drive in a manner that was dangerous to the public,” the judge ruled.

The judge said there was no evidence that Arasaratnam showed a wanton or reckless disregard for safety of others.

In his decision, the judge told Matsumoto’s wife that he was sorry for her loss.

“While you may or may not agree with my conclusions, I hope that they will allow you to close some doors on this tragic accident.”

Kouchi Matsumoto was a retired Carleton University chemistry professor and pioneering member of the city’s Soka Gakkai Buddhist community.

The judge, who called the case “very sad and tragic”, then addressed the accused, saying he was sorry for him, too.

“You are responsible for the death of Kouchi Matsumoto, but not criminally responsible for his death. I am also very sorry for you sir. You will have to live with that for the rest of your life,” Labrosse said in his late December decision.

In an unusual ruling for a Superior Court judge, Labrosse did find Arasaratnam guilty of the lesser offence of careless driving, a provincial Highway Traffic Act offence which carries a penalty ranging from a fine to six months in jail.

The Crown had called six civilian witnesses to the stand.

Jeffrey Bebee testified that he was riding his motorcycle on the Queensway in the westbound lane when he saw Arasaratnam come up beside him. He estimated the accused’s speed to be around 135 km/h.

Dakota Henning testified that he was walking on the east side of Woodroffe Avenue when he heard the BMW taking the off-ramp. He told court that the accused lost control of the car, then over-corrected, hit the median, then struck Matsumoto’s car. He estimated that Arasaratnam was driving at 80 to 90 km/h on an off-ramp that recommends 40 km/h.

Daniel Lega testified that he was driving ahead of Matsumoto’s car. He saw the black BMW approaching from his left. He said the driver was slouching behind the wheel, but as the car started drifting, saw the driver sit up in a panic, going from relaxed to stiff. He said the BMW was going too fast and estimated its speed at 60 km/h.

(An Uber driver on Sunday took the same off-ramp at 70 km/h, which fit the average speed of other drivers.)

Hugh Stewart told court that he was driving south on Woodroffe at the time and that the BMW was travelling “surprisingly fast.”

Thomas Clarke was also in the southbound lane and testified that the BMW was travelling “way too fast.”

Alex Jayasinghe was the passenger in the BMW and was on the same cricket team as the accused, said he had never driven with Arasaratnam and was sitting comfortably and texting at the time so he couldn’t recall or notice if the accused was speeding excessively. He didn’t notice anything beyond normal.

The judge noted that Jayasinghe was not only a persuasive witness but a credible one who did not try to overemphasize the interest of his friend.

It was the first time that Det. David Fong had been assigned as the lead reconstruction officer. Fong concluded in his report that the accused exceeded the range on the off-ramp and lost control. He concluded that Arasaratnam had been driving at a minimum approximate speed of 88 km/h — more than double the recommended speed.

But under cross examination by defence lawyer Lorne Goldstein, Fong admitted that he was actually unable to conclude that the BMW exceeded the range for critical curve speed of the off-ramp. The officer also admitted that the accused’s minimum approximate speed on the off-ramp was 61 km/h, rather than 88 km/h.

The police officer also admitted under cross-examination that his calculations were generic and did not take into account the differences between, say, a minivan and the BMW 300 Series in question. Fong also confirmed that the friction tables he used that were supplied to him contained an error. 

The court also heard from an expert witness who said that people are terrible judges of speed.

Arasaratnam is expected to be sentenced later this year. 

“It was obviously a difficult case with many complex and important legal issues. My client is looking forward to moving forward from here,” said Goldstein.

gdimmock@postmedia.com

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Guillermo Escobedo-Hoyo, 37, broke down Friday morning at his second court appearance since being charged with killing 17-year-old Nick Hickey, saying he didn’t want to spend another second in jail.

Escobedo-Hoyo at times cried uncontrollably, and begged the judge to let him out.

“I can’t be in jail,” he sobbed via video from the Ottawa jail.

Ontario Court Justice Peter Griffiths said he understands it’s a “terrible place to be,” but the accused must wait until his lawyers apply for bail.

Hickey, 17, was fatally struck by a driver Wednesday night during what police allege was a frenzied spree through Bells Corners that only ended once officers arrested a man who was found naked after breaking into a nearby Jeep.

Escobedo-Hoyo has been charged with second-degree murder in the vehicular homicide — a rarity in Ottawa. Homicide detectives believe Escobedo-Hoyo intended to run the teen over.

Police allege that Escobedo-Hoyo fatally struck Hickey with a silver car after hitting a light standard and another vehicle and then stripped down naked before running around the neighbourhood. Police also believe the accused killer, still naked, then confronted several area residents at their homes and asked for guns, before he was eventually arrested inside a Jeep.

An unidentified passer-by adds Friday to a collection of stuffed animals and flowers left on Seyton Drive, where Nick Hickey was hit and killed by a vehicle earlier this week. Tony Caldwell/Postmedia

Hickey was on one of his routine walks near Seyton Drive and Hammill Court, just minutes from his home, when he was struck. The walks helped calm the teen who had long struggled with behavioural issues, but was finally finding a way forward, his family said.

His death has devastated them.

“He was the second half of me,” Hickey’s 11-year-old sister, Vicky Mellon, said Thursday evening in tears. She and her brother shared a love of drawing. 

“Nick was run over like he was nothing,” his mother Tracy said. “He didn’t need someone to just leave him there in the cold snow to die.”

At his court appearance Friday, the accused complained about frostbite on his toes and the judge ordered he be examined by a doctor.

Escobedo-Hoyo — a paralegal at Auger Hollingsworth, according to his LinkedIn profile — is represented by lawyer Samir Adam and will remain in jail until a bail hearing, which has not yet been scheduled. 

The community of Bells Corners has, meanwhile, banded together to help support Hickey’s grieving family. Several area businesses have donated items for a raffle, with all proceeds from the sale of $5 tickets at the Robertson Road FreshCo going to the family to help bury Hickey. Bells Corners Physiotherapy has committed half — $45 – of every assessment until Family Day to the family. Community neighbours are also pitching in to help the Mellon family with meals and household tasks.

— With files from Shaamini Yogaretnam

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A Chelsea doctor accused of secretly filming a female patient during a medical exam is now under house arrest until Ottawa police complete its investigation.

Dr. Vincent Nadon, 56, was released from jail Tuesday in exchange for house arrest.

Nadon was arrested Thursday on charges of sexual assault and voyeurism after a patient in her early 20s reported him to police.

Ottawa police searched his Chelsea home and office for possible evidence on Thursday.

The 30-day house arrest order was secured after the doctor’s brother and wife each posted $10,000 bonds on Tuesday at the Ottawa courthouse.

Nadon is banned from communicating with any of his past and present patients and can’t leave his house without either his brother or wife by his side.

Nadon’s house arrest conditions also prohibit him from using any recording devices. He can only use a home computer to access the internet and must be in the “direct presence” of either his wife or brother, his sureties.

The doctor must also surrender his passport, according to his release order.

The alleged sex crime happened at a University of Ottawa Health Services clinic on Rideau Street, according to police.

Nadon has since been barred from practising at University of Ottawa Health Services clinics.

“The health and security of our students, faculty and support staff is of the utmost importance,” said uOttawa spokeswoman Néomie Duval, last week, in a statement in French.

“As soon as we were informed, the university immediately contacted the University of Ottawa Health Services to ensure that the physician in question was no longer practising at UOHS clinics.”

The Ottawa police’s sex assault unit is still investigating and its detectives fear there could be more victims.

Nadon is represented by Dominic Lamb, a partner at Edelson and Friedman.

The doctor is allowed to meet privately with his lawyer.

Ottawa police issued a public plea for help last week, asking anyone with information about the case to contact its sexual assault unit.

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gdimmock@postmedia.com