Trial set for accused in heist that Crown lawyer calls an inside job

Two suspects accused in what the prosecution alleges was an inside-job bank robbery will stand trial in the fall of 2017.

Lawyers for Kenza Belakziz and Saleem Nasery appeared in Court of Queen’s Bench on behalf of their clients Friday to schedule a four-week jury trial beginning Oct. 16, 2017.

Neither Belakziz, 21, or Nasery, 22, were present as lawyers Greg Dunn and Pat Fagan asked Chief Justice Neil Wittmann to set aside dates for the hearing.

They also scheduled the two weeks leading up to the jury trial for any motions on the admissibil- ity of evidence.

Both accused are free on bail pending trial. Belakziz was arrested almost a month after three armed men stormed a Mission Bank of Montreal on Nov. 26, 2014, and bound seven employees with zip ties.

Police were called to the bank in the 2300 block of 4th Street S.W. around 5 p.m. after the bandits tied the employees’ hands and locked them in a back room.

Cops arrested three suspects shortly after the robbery, but the employees weren’t freed until about four hours later, once officers were certain there wasn’t a fourth suspect inside.

Two men have already been handed penitentiary sentences for their roles in the heist. Matthew Alexis Valdes was handed the equivalent of a 5 1/2-year sentence in May, 2015, after pleading guilty to three charges in connection with the heist.

Valdes admitted being the gunman who wielded a pellet pistol used to intimidate the victims. At his sentencing, court was told two tellers were forced to enter their cash machine codes and $12,000 was placed into two bags.

The bandits also unsuccessfully tried to get into the vault before fleeing with $6,000.

Lukas Wayne Windsor was handed a five-year, two-month sentence after pleading guilty in March, 2015.

He also admitted three charges; unlawful confinement, wearing a disguise and robbery with a firearm.