Slaying victim got a call before leaving house, brother testifies

Slain Calgarian Mohammad Saqib received a late-night phone call before leaving his residence, never to be seen alive again, his brother testified Wednesday.

Mohammad Qasim said he was home with his elder sibling in the early morning hours of Sept. 18, 2015.

But Qasim said sometime around 1:30 a.m. Saqib left the home, for what he thought was a last-minute trip to a liquor store to buy beer.

“I asked Saqib, ‘where are you going?’ and he said ‘I’ll be back in 10 minutes,’” Qasim said.

The witness told Crown prosecutor Vince Pingitore his brother had a large wad of cash on him.

“He had a thousand bucks on him,” the brother said.

“He gave me a hundred bucks before he left.”

Brothers Julius and Theo Wheyee and Saad Osman are charged with second-degree murder in the death of Saqib, whose body was found in the trunk of his other brother’s charred Audi, 13 kilometres northwest of Airdrie, just hours after he left their home. He had been shot three times. It’s the Crown’s theory Saqib was lured from his home and murdered over a $4,000 drug debt he owed to Osman, who told police the dead man was his friend.

Qasim testified he had met some of his brother’s acquaintances, but had never met Osman.

Under cross-examination by lawyer Allan Fay, who has been appointed to question certain civilian witnesses on behalf of the unrepresented Osman, Qasim said he wasn’t aware of the deceased being involved in anything unlawful.

“I have no knowledge of that,” he told Fay.

The trial continues Thursday.