Two men guilty in beating death of stranger

Less than 24 hours after retiring, a jury has convicted two men in the brutal beating death of 25-year-old music journalist Zaher (Zack) Noureddine in midtown Toronto almost three years ago.

Jurors found Patrick Smith, 28, not guilty of first-degree murder but guilty of seconddegree murder. Smith, who was also found guilty of assault for stomping on Noureddine’s coworker, Mitchell Conery, wept in the prisoners’ box for several minutes after the verdicts were read out.

Matthew Moreira, 34, pleaded not guilty to murder, and not guilty to robbery, but guilty to the lesser offence of attempted robbery. Moreira was convicted of manslaughter. Smith had attempted to plead guilty to manslaughter.

A third man, William Cummins, 32, is still facing a firstdegree murder charge and is set to be tried separately in the new year. He has also tried to plead guilty to manslaughter, which the Crown has rejected.

Noureddine’s family, who are from Ottawa, were in the courtroom when the jury came back Thursday around 5 p.m. Jurors retired to deliberate Wednesday night.

“It’s not fair, they killed my son,” a sobbing Magda Noured- dine, the victim’s mother, yelled as a family member led her out of the courtroom.

Her husband, Hassan Noureddine, said the family is disappointed the jury didn’t convict the pair of first-degree murder as charged.

He thanked the witnesses who came forward. “Without them there wouldn’t have been any case.” He added his son, the first born of three, was not “targeted” by the three strangers, “any person could have been the target.”

Crown attorneys Bev Richards and Mihael Cole argued the trio was guilty of first-degree murder because Conery was confined during the attack.

Dressed in business attire and leaving a restaurant, Noureddine and Conery were walking to Conery’s parked car just before midnight on Dec. 29, 2015, when three men emerged from an alleyway. Conery testified he was punched on the side of his head, knocked to the ground and had his head stomped on. Moreira ordered him to “give me your wallet and it’s all over.”

While lying on the ground, Conery testified he watched Smith and Cummins punch and kick Noureddine in the head and face. Several witnesses who were outside a nearby St. Louis Bar and Grill started shouting and scared the trio off.

Sentencing is set for March 29.