Top court denies bid to appeal by Calgary’s ‘Beltline Rapist’

OTTAWA – Canada’s top court won’t give a violent rapist from Calgary a chance to overturn his conviction.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that it will not grant Wafid Delaa leave to appeal his conviction on the basis that police improperly obtained DNA evidence linking him to both sexual assaults.

The court generally does not provide reasons for its decision to grant or deny leave to appeal.

Undercover police obtained Delaa’s DNA by setting up a fake chewing gum taste test at a gas station parking lot in April 2004. Delaa took the fake test and, instead of spitting each stick of gum on the ground, was encouraged to spit it out into a cup.

One of the officers broke from script and offered Delaa a lollipop she had been sucking on. Delaa took it, licked it, and gave it back to her.

Dubbed the Beltline Rapist by local media, Delaa’s lawyers had argued unsuccessfully to lower courts that he had been illegally coerced into surrendering his DNA. Had he spit it on the ground, the police could have legally grabbed the gum.

At a 2009 hearing, a lawyer for Delaa asked the court to toss out the DNA evidence and all evidence collected as a result of the DNA match. That would have effectively overturned his conviction.

Delaa was convicted in 2006 of raping a 19-year-old in 2003 and a 17-year-old schoolgirl in 2004. Both women were attacked, bound and covered before being raped. The judge who convicted Delaa called the attacks "vicious" and "cruel."

In 2007, Delaa was declared a dangerous offender. He is serving an indeterminate prison sentence.