Man jailed 16 years in murder of Rwandan refugee over drug debt
22-year-old victim arrived in Canada in 2009 after living through genocide
When he was just six years old, Gilbert Nshimiyumukiza saw his parents executed in the Rwandan genocide. On Friday, Nshimiyumukiza’s own death — inside an apartment in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough, over a small drug debt — was also characterized as an execution. “It resembles an execution, a senseless drug slaying,” Justice Michel Pennou said at the Montreal courthouse while ordering that Jermaine Gero, 44 — who shot the unarmed Rwandan refugee at almost point-blank range — serve at least 16 years of his life sentence before he is eligible for parole. Pennou made the comment while explaining why he agreed with the Crown’s request to set Gero’s parole eligibility well beyond the minimum 10 years. The judge noted that he was told very little about Nshimiyumukiza except that he was a Rwandan refugee and that he was fatally shot while seated on a couch, unarmed. Nshimiyumukiza, arrived in Canada in 2009, at age 22, after having left Rwanda, where he lived through the genocide and witnessed his parents being gunned down in cold blood when he was just a child. His refugee claim was accepted and a year later he made plans to work as a nurse’s aide and to have three brothers join him in Montreal. In an article published by the Montreal Gazette in 2016, Nshimiyumukiza’s friends and relatives described how his positive outlook when he arrived in Canada gradually changed as he descended into what they assumed was drug abuse. A relative also said it appeared he had taken part in drug trafficking before he was killed. According to a joint statement of facts presented to Pennou in September when Gero pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and another man, Nikita Hunt, 29, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the same case, Nshimiyumukiza was killed over a small drug debt. At around 1 a.m. on April 30, 2016, Gero, Hunt and a third man named Robertson Shamora, 31, forced their way into an apartment on Genet St. where Nshimiyumukiza lived with a friend. Shamora wanted to collect money that Nshimiyumukiza had owed him for weeks. The trio caught Nshimiyumukiza and his friend off guard and forced them to sit on a couch while Shamora demanded to know which one of the pair had been selling drugs. Gero pointed a gun toward Nshimiyumukiza while Shamora asked questions. A fourth man, who has yet to be identified, entered the apartment and proceeded to beat Nshimiyumukiza’s friend with a baseball bat. Gero then fired a single shot into Nshimiyumukiza’s head. According to the joint statement of facts, the four men appeared to be surprised that the gun had gone off before they decided to flee the apartment. A security camera had captured images of three men before they entered the apartment, including how Gero was wearing a pair of yellow gloves. A piece of one of the gloves was later recovered on a fence near Nshimiyumukiza’s apartment window and a forensics expert found Gero’s DNA on it. His DNA was also found on gloves discovered in a garbage bin on Grenet St. When Hunt and Gero were arrested two months later, the police found the murder weapon inside Hunt’s backpack, wrapped in a bandana on which Gero’s DNA was also found. On Sept. 11, Pennou sentenced Hunt to a nine-year prison term for his role in Nshimiyumukiza’s death and the assault on his roommate. Factoring in time served, Hunt was left with a 71-month prison term. Hunt is a permanent resident in Canada and, when he pleaded guilty in September, he acknowledged that he is likely to be deported to St. Vincent and the Grenadines before he is released on parole.