Witness heard commotion in basement suite of murder suspects

Angry yelling was heard in a basement suite where fatal shooting victim Mohammad Saqib was allegedly lured over a drug debt, court heard Thursday.

Calgarian Carleen Big Plume testified she was so disturbed by the commotion she asked her mother-in-law to go quiet down their downstairs neighbours.

Big Plume said she was living in the upstairs unit at 124 Pineland Pl. N.E. in September 2015, around the time Saqib was murdered and left in the trunk of his brother’s burnedout car. She told Crown prosecutor Doug Taylor that about a week before police descended on the residence on Sept. 23, 2015, she was disturbed by noises downstairs.

“All I remember is the yelling and I asked my mother-in-law if she could tell them to be quiet,” Big Plume said.

Big Plume testified she heard three voices yelling from the basement suite, including one that was getting increasingly angry.

In his opening address, Taylor told Justice Karen Horner it was the prosecution’s theory that Saad Osman was angry with Saqib over a $4,000 drug debt and lured him to Osman’s home after midnight on Sept. 18, 2015.

From there, he was forcibly taken to the Pineland Place residence of brothers Theo and Julius Wheyee, where the trio dealt with him in the laundry room, Taylor said.

Saqib’s body was found hours later in his brother’s burned-out car on a rural road 13 kilometres northeast of Airdrie. He had been shot three times.

All three accused are charged with second-degree murder.

The trial continues Friday.