Diplomat’s son pleads no contest to killings

MIAMI• The teenage son of a Canadian diplomat pleaded no contest Friday to reduced charges of thirddegree felony murder related to a double killing in Miami — even t hough he had no part in the gunplay that left his older brother dead.

In exchange for his plea, Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, of Ottawa, will have to serve six months in a boot camp starting next week, followed by 10 months of modified house arrest and a maximum eight years’ probation.

If he completes the sentence without incident, the teen will have no criminal conviction registered against him.

“Marchas his future ,” his mother Roxanne Dubé, Canada’s former consul general in Miami, told The Canadian Press. “He’s going to be saved.”

W abafi ye bazu, Dube’ s younger son, has been in custody since last March 30, when he was arrested outside a Miami apartment in which his 18- year-old brother Jean Wabafiyebazu and another teen were shot dead.

Prosecutors did not allege the younger sibling had any direct role in the bloodshed, apparently the result of his brother ’s attempt to rob a drug dealer of 800 grams of marijuana. However, t hey maintained Wabafiyebazu had known of t he scheme when they drove in their mom’s car to what police called the “drug den.”

As a result, under Florida’ s felony law, they charged the teen as an adult with multiple offences, including felony first- degree murder, which carries a minimum 40 years in prison.

Under the plea deal approved by the state attorney, however, the prosecution made a rare concession to reduce the two main charges he faced to third- degree murder. Wabafiyebazu also pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of aggravated batter y and attempted armed robbery.

“Essentially, he is paying the price for Jean ,” Dubé said. “He is also pleading to the murder of his own brother.”

Wabafiyebazu’s two coaccused, including the drug dealer who fled the scene with his drugs and a handgun, were granted bail soon after also being charged with lesser felony-murder crimes. Prosecutors agreed to drop those charges in exchange for their commitment to testify against Wabafiyebazu and a guilty plea.

Last fall, both co- accused pleaded guilty to minor drug charges and were sentenced to boot camp, house arrest and probation which, if successfully completed, would also mean no conviction.

Dubé stepped down last August as consul general, a post she had taken up less than two months before the deadly encounter.