Police fired 5,000 bullets in one hour
Says he wasn’t 18 at time of slayings
Hamed Shafia, the Montreal man convicted along with his father and mother of murdering four family members in what the trial judge called a “heinous” and “despicable” mass honour killing, is poised to present a new claim to Ontario’s top court regarding the appeal of his conviction.
The youngest Shafia killer maintains that he was not 18 years old at the time of the murders on June 30, 2009, and he has documents newly obtained from Afghanistan, his birthplace, that purport to prove it.
Shafia was tried and sentenced as an adult, based on documents that indicated he was born in Kabul on Dec. 30, 1990. Those records established that he was 18-and-ahalf years old at the time of the killings, and therefore subject to adult criminal law.
After a 45-day trial, he was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to the mandatory term of 25 years in prison before parole eligibility.
If convicted of murder in youth court and sentenced as a youth, he would be eligible for parole much sooner, perhaps in as few as five years, calculated from the date of his arrest in July 2009, according to Nicholas Bala, a Queen’s University law professor and expert on youth criminal law.
The legal scholar said it might be the first case in Canada in which a killer sought to prove he was underage after his adult conviction.
“I don’t think it’s ever been litigated in this way,” he said.
Hamed Shafia was tried jointly with his father, Mohammad Shafia, now 62, and his mother, Tooba Yahya, now 45, in the murder of his sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and of Roma Amir, 50, who was Mohammad Shafia’s first wife.
The polygamous Afghan family settled in Montreal in 2007. Two years later, the victims were found dead inside a car at the bottom of a shallow canal in Kingston.
The trial was held in Kingston from October 2011 to January 2012. After the guilty verdict, trial judge Robert Maranger said the crimes were based on a “twisted notion of honour.”
Jurors heard that Mohammad Shafia orchestrated the killings, believing it would restore his family honour. He felt it was tarnished because three of his daughters violated strict cultural rules around modesty and obedience and Rona supported them.
Jurors heard that Hamed researched locations and means to commit the murders.
The Montreal Gazette has learned that a secret hearing was held on Oct. 23 in a courtroom in Kingston, during which Mohammad Shafia testified that the newly obtained documents correctly show that his son was born Dec. 30, 1991.
The three killers already filed a 110-page document with the Court of Appeal in March 2015, complaining they were victims of “cultural stereotyping” and “overwhelmingly prejudicial evidence” that shouldn’t have been admitted at their trial.
A hearing of those claims was to be heard Dec. 14, but it appears the new claim will derail the plan.
“I have every reason to believe it’s going to be rescheduled,” Crown lawyer Jocelyn Speyer said.
Hamed’s Toronto lawyer, Scott Hutchison, is filing an application seeking to put the new birthdate documents before the Court of Appeal as fresh evidence. Hutchison declined to comment.
Veteran Toronto criminal defence lawyer James Lockyer said if the Court of Appeal is satisfied that the new documents establish that Hamed wasn’t 18 at the time of the killings, it would have several options, including the possibility of ordering a new trial in a youth court.
“He’s been tried under an adult process and … does that mean his trial’s vitiated as well?” he said. “I don’t know.”
Lockyer said the Appeal Court could also “choose to become effectively a trial court and impose the sentence it thinks would be appropriate,” or refer the case to a youth court for a new sentencing decision.
Bala said a Crown prosecutor would almost certainly seek to have Hamed Shafia sentenced as an adult, even if convicted as a youth.
The professor expressed skepticism about the birthdate issue.
“I think there may be a significant credibility issue here,” he said.