Judge to rule on whether or not Ghazi knew he was admitting to murder
Quebecer will find out next month if he can retract plea
A man who admits he killed his unborn child when he stabbed his wife repeatedly with a meat fork will find out in a month whether a Quebec Superior Court judge believes his claim that he didn’t know he was pleading guilty to second-degree murder when he put a quick end to his jury trial.
Justice Jean-françois Buffoni said Friday that he will deliver his decision on March 27 on Sofiane Ghazi’s request to retract the guilty plea he entered on Sept. 5, the day after evidence began being presented in his trial at the Montreal courthouse. Over the course of three court dates this week, Ghazi and his new lawyer, Steve Hanafi, argued Ghazi did not understand what he was admitting to when Buffoni carefully asked him a series of questions while attempting to confirm he was pleading guilty to an offence that comes with an automatic life sentence.
Ghazi claims he thought he was pleading guilty to manslaughter and that the prosecution and his former defence lawyers — Moulay-badre Aber and François Taddeo — would make a joint sentencing recommendation of 15 years.
Lawyers from both sides have said that after Ghazi decided to put an end to his case they reached a deal in which he would plead guilty to a reduced charge — second-degree murder instead of first degree — and they would make a joint recommendation that he be required to serve at least 15 years before he becomes eligible for parole.
The Crown had put the same offer on the table before jury selection began, and the defence revealed this week they were willing to gamble and see if, by going through the process of jury selection, the prosecution would reduce the number of years Ghazi would have to serve before he could apply for parole. The Crown didn’t fall for their bluff and the trial proceeded until Ghazi became emotional when he saw a video, recorded by police, that captured the state of the couple’s apartment on the day he stabbed his wife 19 times. She survived the attack, but the baby died.
The video captured images of toys that belonged to the couple’s other two children in the apartment.
On Friday, prosecutor Chantal Michaud argued Ghazi actually reached his emotional limit when a reporter asked for a copy of the video as the trial broke for lunch on Sept. 4. She argued Ghazi didn’t like the idea of the video going public and experienced something similar to buyer’s remorse days later.
“It’s like a person who buys a house and only realizes later they paid too much for it,” Michaud told Buffoni.
Hanafi argued that the evidence presented this week shows there was a miscommunication between Ghazi and his lawyers. He also highlighted how Aber wrote in an affidavit that he and Taddeo met with Ghazi at the Rivière-des-prairies detention centre on Aug. 28 to discuss the trial. Ghazi surprised the court this week when he produced an official list of who visited him that day and Taddeo was not on it.
However, producing the list may have backfired for Ghazi. He claimed he was unable to talk to Aber in person or by phone between Sept. 5, the day he entered the guilty plea, and Sept. 16, the day he returned to court and made the surprise announcement that he wanted to retract his plea. The same list showed Aber visited Ghazi at the detention centre on Sept. 10.