Killer gives impassioned speech before sentencing
Dia-eddin Hanan did what any parent would have done when he fatally shot one man and paralyzed another outside his Windsor home two days before Christmas in 2015.
That’s what the 37-year-old said in court Tuesday during his sentencing hearing for manslaughter and firearms charges while a dozen friends and family members wept and whispered prayers in the public gallery behind him.
“The gun was pointed at my chest,” Hanan read from a notebook when Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe granted him the opportunity to speak.
“My life, my children, my family was at risk. People can only imagine being in that position.”
He maintained his innocence, and went on to say, “I’m a humble man of respect and dignity and common sense.
“I would never shoot anyone for no reason, let alone at my family’s home with my children there — that’s preposterous.”
A jury in November found Hanan not guilty of second-degree murder, but guilty of manslaughter in the death of Alekesji Guzhavin, a 30-year-old London man.
He was acquitted of an attempted murder charge in the shooting of Gregory Henriquez, 39, an American living in Windsor at the time who was severely injured and left permanently paralyzed.
The jury found Hanan guilty on two other counts: discharging a firearm with the intent to wound and possessing an illegal firearm.
During the four-week trial, Henriquez testified he had given Guzhavin a ride to Hanan’s residence to borrow money. Hanan told the jury the two men came to his home unannounced to shake him down for money, and he offered them $300. Hanan said he wrestled a gun away from Guzhavin and began shooting wildly into the dark to protect his life and the lives of his two children, ages two and one at the time, and adult family members who were inside the house.
Assistant Crown attorney Jayme Lesperance restated the Crown’s position that Hanan brought the gun to the violent encounter and had possession of it the entire time. He asked for a sentence of 17 years, and called the defence’s request for a six- to 10-year sentence “entirely inappropriate.”
“The sentence has to reflect the facts that Mr. Guzhavin was killed and Mr. Henriquez will never walk again,” Lesperance told the court.
Hanan’s defence lawyer, Christopher Uwagboe, told reporters the jury may have found the nine shots his client fired “excessive for (a finding of) self-defence,” but he found it appropriate for a six to 10-year sentence. He also said Munroe, in deciding Hanan’s sentence, will have to consider that Hanan was not facing any criminal charges or under a weapons prohibition at the time of the shooting.
Uwagboe said Hanan, who is not a Canadian citizen, faces deportation to Jordan because of his yetto-be-determined sentence. Hanan arrived in Canada as a refugee when he was a child.
“Beyond his sentence, beyond his parole … if he gets deported he’s not going to see his family,” Uwagboe said. Hanan and his wife now have three children, ages six, five and two. “That’s what I think weighs heavily on him.”
Before bowing deeply toward Munroe at the end of Tuesday’s proceedings, Hanan said he wished Guzhavin was still alive and Henriquez could still walk.
“I was there the night of this. Not your honour, not the jury, not the Crown, and not the police, but me. I felt the fear. I was the one being threatened,” Hanan said.
“If I’m wrong for saving my life and protecting my family, especially my children, then so be it. I know any mother or father would have done the same thing.”
He added he meant “no disrespect” to the court or Munroe, whom he called “the wisest of the wise when it comes to the law” but said he was “not trying to butter (Munroe) up or suck up to you.”
Munroe told Hanan, “You have always been respectful.”
Hanan will be sentenced on March 2.