Man sentenced to 9 years in prison for fatally shooting 20-year-old Surrey woman

A B.C. man has been sentenced to nine years in prison for fatally shooting a woman in Surrey two years ago, and an unrelated robbery two months earlier.

Ali Rafid Khudh Khudhair, 26, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the May 4, 2021 killing of Keryane Arsenault, a 20-year-old sex worker.

He also pleaded guilty to robbery and a weapons charge for holding up a poker game in Burnaby on March 3, 2021.

In her reasons for sentencing, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather MacNaughton found that Khudhair had gone to Arsenault’s Surrey townhome near 96th Avenue and 161A Street with the intent of robbing her after finding her on a classifieds website.

That attempted robbery was disrupted when Arsenault’s boyfriend, who was in another room in the unit, heard strange sounds coming from her room and confronted Khudhair.

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Khudhair fired a single shot from an illegal handgun as he tried to remove himself from the situation, which pierced Arsenault’s chest and ultimately proved fatal.

In a victim impact statement at Khudhair’s sentencing, Arsenault’s boyfriend described the killing as “about the darkest and most bitter experience of his life,” and said Arsenault “was the centre of his life, and he misses the ‘sound of her voice and the ring of her laugh.'”

Khudhair, a permanent resident who came to Canada via Syria as a refugee originally from Iraq, apologized to the victims, which MacNaughton accepted as genuine. She further ruled that Khudhair had not intended to kill anyone when he went to the home, but remained morally responsible for Arsenault’s death.

“He engaged in calculated criminal behaviour intended to rob or take advantage of Ms. Arsenault. As a sex worker, Ms. Arsenault was one of the most vulnerable members of our society,” MacNaughton found.

“Mr. Khudhair planned the events. He attended the Residence with a gun that he pulled out; he pointed the gun at Ms. Arsenault and (her boyfriend) with his finger on the trigger. The chance of someone being killed was highly foreseeable. Mr. Khudhair engaged in highly careless and reckless conduct with the gun.”

For both the robbery and the killing, MacNaughton sentenced Khudhair to 12 years behind bars, which was reduced to nine years and 34 days after credit for time served.

He has also been ordered to submit a DNA sample and received a lifetime firearms ban.