TORONTO – The lawyer for Hamed Shafia says his client has filed notice to appeal his first-degree murder conviction in the deaths of four family members.
Patrick McCann says Hamed Shafia, 21, has taken the first step by filing an inmate’s notice to the Court of Appeal for Ontario.
McCann says the main grounds of the appeal relate to admissibility of what he calls “hearsay evidence” from the victims and of the expert evidence on “honour killing.”
He says it will likely be at least a year before the appeal is heard.
Shafia and his parents Mohammad Shafia, 58, and Tooba Yahya, 42, were each found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder on Sunday in Kingston, Ont.
They were given automatic life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years. McCann could not confirm if the parents are also appealing their convictions but says he believes they plan to.
The Crown alleged during the three-month trial the murders were carried out to restore honour to the Montreal family after the daughters tried to resist their parents’ strict control.
The bodies of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti Shafia, 13, along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 52 – Mohammad’s first wife in a polygamous marriage – were found in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal on June 30, 2009.
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