Bank robber hopes for reduced sentence

Onerous bail conditions, including more than a year under house arrest, should result in a substantial discount on a bank robber’s sentence, his lawyer said Friday.

Defence counsel Pat Fagan said the six-year sentence proposed by him and Crown prosecutor Vicki Faulkner should be reduced to credit Saleem Nasery for his time on bail.

Fagan said the bulk of that time, more than 13 months, should be credited on a one-for-one basis as Nasery was under house arrest.

But Justice David Gates questioned giving the offender that much of a discount, considering days after he was released on bail in January 2015, Nasery was allowed to attend the University of Calgary.

“Within four days he’s allowed to go to university (as an exception to his house arrest),” Gates noted.

But Fagan said Nasery was still restricted to the university campus and couldn’t take part in projects with other students away from the school.

“He had to stay on those grounds, so if he wasn’t subjected to house arrest he was subjected to campus arrest,” the lawyer said.

Nasery, 24, pleaded guilty in Sep- tember to three charges, including armed robbery, in connection with a heist at a Bank of Montreal branch in which he and his accomplices received inside information from his girlfriend, Kenza Belakziz.

Nasery and two others stormed the Mission branch on Nov. 26, 2014, and bound staff with zip ties.

Fagan said one of the onerous conditions imposed on Nasery on his release 2 1/2 months later included no contact with Belakziz, effectively ending their relationship. But Gates, who will sentence Belakziz later this month for her role, questioned how that was a strict condition if they were going to break up anyway.

The judge asked Nasery for the date when he broke up with his girlfriend.

“I can’t speculate on when it ended, I still have feelings for her,” he said.

“Mr. Nasery, I hate to break this to you, but she doesn’t consider that she’s still in a relationship with you,” Gates said.

Two other robbers, Matthew Alexis Valdes and Lukas Wayne Windsor, were handed penitentiary sentences after pleading guilty to their roles in the robbery.