An appeal by the Crown against a not guilty verdict for the man accused of killing a Good Samaritan in downtown Hamilton has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal for Ontario.
At the end of 2017, 19-year-old Yosif Al-Hasnawi was shot outside the al-Moustafa Islamic Centre on Main Street East near Sanford Avenue.
Dale King was charged with second-degree murder — and found not guilty by a jury almost two years later.
Al-Hasnawi – a Brock University student and aspiring doctor – had come to the aid of an older man who had been confronted by two other men.
He was shot and killed during the intervention outside the Islamic centre, according to Hamilton police.
The court of appeal’s ruling said there was “no doubt that the respondent was the shooter” but that the question was, “did the respondent act in self-defence” and, if he did not, “did he have the intention to commit murder?”
The appeal, which has now been dismissed, argued that three errors occurred.
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The Crown alleged misdirection with respect to self-defence and two issues around “an imbalanced evidentiary record” because the trial judge excluded evidence King was allegedly involved in a robbery before the shooting and previous assault convictions.
However, a panel of three judges dismissed the appeal.
“The trial judge was in a difficult position, presiding in a proceeding requiring several highly variable and case-specific exercises of discretion that he reasoned through and released on the go in the middle of a four-week murder trial,” the panel wrote.
They praised the judge’s “hard work and sound efforts.”
Global News has contacted the Crown to ask if it plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
— with files from Global News’ Don Mitchell
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