Both St-léonard victims killed by the same firearm, jury told

Two men killed inside an apartment in St-léonard were shot by the same firearm, a jury heard Friday, though prosecutors maintain the men were on the opposite ends of a robbery.

The testimony of ballistics expert Guillaume Arnet at the Montreal courthouse Friday in the trial of Fodil Abderhamane Lakehal, 24, was short, but is key to the case.

Lakehal faces three charges: armed robbery and two counts of manslaughter. The Crown's theory in the case is that on Dec. 24, 2018, the accused took part in an attempt to rob Davis Arbour, 38, of drugs and cash at his 10th floor apartment on Jean-talon St. E. in St-léonard and had two men and a woman as his accomplices. Arbour was killed during the incident, as was Marc Hilary Dasilma, 41, Lakehal's brother-in-law and one of the alleged accomplices in the attempted heist.

When prosecutor Matthew Ferguson made his opening statement in the trial last week, he said Arbour was killed while trying to prevent a robbery and Dasilma was killed by “friendly fire.”

“The men were there to rob (Arbour) of drugs and/or money. But the robbery was aborted because Mr. Arbour resisted the intruders,” said Ferguson, who is prosecuting the case with Simon Lapierre.

When police arrived, they found both victims on the 10th floor of the building as well as $19,000 and large amounts of cocaine, cannabis and other drugs. Both men were declared dead in the apartment building.

Ferguson told the jury the prosecution won't attempt to prove that Lakehal killed the men.

“The central question in this case is rather whether the evidence shows that the accused, Fodil Lakehal, was indeed part of a plan to rob a drug dealer in his home and whether bodily harm was objectively foreseeable under the circumstances,” the prosecutor said.

According to the prosecutor, Kim Savard-pichette, a young woman described as one of the accomplices in the attempted robbery, arrived at the entrance to the apartment building first. She was allowed in by someone else in the building. She then allowed another alleged accomplice, Gabriel Jasmin, to enter and he allowed Lakehal and Dasilma inside.

When all four got to the 10th floor, Savard-pichette knocked on Arbour's door. She was the only person visible to the victim before he opened the door and was attacked.

“The plan was quite simple. Send a girl knocking on the door. Encourage the occupant to open the door. Forcefully enter the home. Employ the threat of grievous bodily harm to convince the drug trafficker to turn over the loot,” Ferguson said last week. “But the plan failed during its execution.”

On Friday, Arnet said the three bullets removed from the bodies of both men came from the same firearm, which has yet to be found.

Pathologist Yann Dazé, the only other witness to testify Friday, said he recovered one of the bullets from Dasilma's body.

Arbour suffered three wounds from bullets in the shooting, Dazé said, but he added that it was possible one bullet travelled through his left forearm before entering his chest. The pathologist recovered two bullets from Arbour's body.

“The four casings all had the same signature,” Arnet said after explaining to the jury how every pistol leaves distinct marks on the casing of a bullet before it is fired. “That tells me the casings were fired from the same firearm.”