2nd man accused of manslaughter in death of Gabriel Neil remains at large: police

More than two and a half months after a 21-year-old man was arrested and charged with manslaughter in the death of a Western University freshman, a second suspect facing the same charge in the case remains at large, police said Thursday.

Haroun Raselma, 19, has been the subject of a Canada-wide arrest warrant for manslaughter since Sept. 17, issued in connection with the assault and subsequent death of Gabriel Neil, 18, less than a week earlier.

Police say Neil, a first-year health science student, was critically injured after being assaulted around 2 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 11 near Sarnia and Western roads, just off the university’s campus. Neil was transported to hospital, where he later died of his injuries.

A 21-year-old man, Aliyan Ahmed, was arrested the day of the assault and charged with manslaughter. He was later released on $10,000 bail with strict conditions during a court hearing on Sept. 16. Ahmed is set to appear in court on Dec. 13. Western University confirmed that Ahmed was not a student.

In an update Thursday, police stated they have so far been unable to locate Raselma in connection with the case, adding the 19-year-old is known to have ties to both the London and Montreal areas.

“We implore him to contact a lawyer and surrender himself to police,” Det. Sgt. Sean Travis, officer in charge of the London police major crime section, said in a statement.

Police issued a photograph of Raselma in their appeal for information along with a description of the 19-year-old, which can be found on the London Police Service website.

Anyone with information is asked to contact London police at 519-661-5670, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).

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Details remain limited about what occurred on the morning of the incident. Police have declined to issue further details as the matter is before the courts.

In a statement issued shortly after his death, Neil’s family described the 18-year-old as a “gentle and kind soul who made friends wherever he went.”

“He was excited to be starting his first year of Kinesiology at Western and had aspirations of one day becoming a doctor,” the statement read.

Police stressed that Neil’s death, the city’s tenth homicide of 2021, was not in any way linked to allegations of mass drugging and sexual assaults on Western’s campus that were reported the same weekend.