Mistaken identity case results in attempted murder conviction
A man has been convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of a university student in a case of mistaken identity.
Saeed Mobeen Rana was one of three men who opened fire at the 19-year-old student, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, after wrongly believing the victim was a member of a rival drug-trafficking gang.
On Monday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Pearlman found Rana guilty of attempted murder, possessing a loaded, restricted firearm and occupying a vehicle in which there was a gun.
The student testified that he had left his home on the afternoon of April 4, 2016 and was headed to the university when he pulled his father’s black BMW over to the side of the road on 86A Avenue in Surrey. Shortly after, a black SUV pulled up beside him and he saw a person whose face was largely masked by a dark bandana in the front passenger side of the vehicle.
He saw the front and rear passenger windows being rolled down and a gun being pointed at him.
He ducked as multiple shots were fired and was hit in the thigh. The SUV left the scene.
When police arrived, they discovered 16 bullet holes in the BMW. Two more bullet holes were found in the fences of nearby homes.
The Crown’s theory was that in the spring of 2016, Rana was one of the leaders of a group of drug traffickers that was in conflict with another group of dealers.
There was a shooting incident the day before the Surrey attack in which a vehicle associated with Rana was targeted by the rival group.
Rana’s group set up a meeting with their rivals, purportedly to arrange the sale of drugs, but the actual goal was to get revenge and ambush them, according to the prosecution.
The main issue at the trial was whether Rana was in the SUV and if he participated in the attack, and whether he had the necessary intention to kill whoever was in the BMW.
The defence argued that the Crown had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt and questioned the accounts given by two key Crown witnesses whose identifies were banned at trial.
In his ruling, the judge said that while the evidence of the two witnesses implicating Rana needed to be approached with extreme caution, the two men had not colluded in their testimony.
He said one of the two witnesses in particular recognized that his best interests lay in providing an accurate account of the events.
“While I haven’t accepted all of his evidence, I am satisfied as a result of confirmatory evidence that he was telling the truth when he identified Mr. Rana as an occupant of the van and a participant in the shooting.”
The judge found that Rana had fired five of the shots at the victim’s vehicle.
In November, John Stanley Cullen, a co-accused of Rana, pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Rana’s sentencing hearing is set for April 6.