More than nine months after hearing opening arguments, a B.C. jury in the first-degree murder trial of Ibrahim Ali has begun deliberating on his fate.
Ali has pleaded not-guilty to the July, 2017 killing of a young teen girl, whose body was found in a Burnaby park. The victim’s identity is protected by a publication ban.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lance Bernard instructed the jury and sent them to begin deliberations just after 5 p.m. Thursday. That process was delayed by a day after Ali’s lawyer Kevin McCullough said someone had threatened to kill him and his wife before Christmas, and that police were involved.
There was also a dramatic moment Thursday when Ali rose in court, saying, “Mr. Justice, can I just speak to the jury for a minute please.”
The request was denied, as Crown and defence had both concluded their cases.
The trial, which was initially slated to last three months, began on April 5.
More than 40 witnesses testified for the Crown, and the jury has had to sit through disturbing and difficult evidence.
The victim was found partially clothed in Burnaby’s Central Park shortly after midnight on July 19, 2017 — just hours after she had been reported missing.
Prosecutors allege she was grabbed from a trail in the park, sexually assaulted and fatally strangled.
The jury heard semen was found inside her body, and an RCMP forensic biologist testified the odds the DNA identified belonged to someone other than Ali were one in 72-quintillion.
Crown lawyer Daniel Porte said the scene itself, but also significant injuries to the genital area, prove beyond a reasonable doubt the young teen was sexually assaulted.
Defence did not call any witnesses in the case, arguing instead that the Crown had failed to prove Ali killed the girl.
McCullough called the Crown’s theory “crazy,” saying the victim had no injuries suggesting she had fought back, and said prosecutors’ evidence was purely circumstantial.
Defence’s theory is that Ali and the teen had sex, but that someone else killed her and dumped her body in the park.
During closing arguments, McCullough told the jury the victim wasn’t the “innocent” depicted in Crown’s “rose-coloured” portrayal.
The trial was also coloured by the death of a key Crown witness, sexual assault expert Dr. Tracy Pickett, who went missing before she could complete her cross-examination.
Police ruled out foul play, but Ali’s lawyers filed a mistrial motion in October arguing there was real danger the jury would blame defence for her death. Bernard dismissed the application, and instructed the jury to disregard her evidence and not to speculate on her death.
On Thursday, he again cautioned the jury to completely wipe her evidence from their minds.
In his final instructions to the jury, Bernard summed up the arguments presented by Crown and defence, and told them they could deliver one of four verdicts: guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter — or not guilty.
The jury will be sequestered during their deliberations.
-With files from Rumina Daya and the Canadian Press
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