Witness says accused confessed to stabbing

An accused killer confessed in a high-school classroom to stabbing another man to death in a fight that “went wrong,” a former classmate told a first-degree murder trial Tuesday.

Madison Sleigh testified that she was stunned when Ahmed Hafizi admitted to killing Navid Niran to her in a class at All Saints High School in Kanata on Feb. 10, 2012.

“He came up to me looking a little uneasy and he’s like, ‘I’m going to show you something, but I think it might scare you,’ ” said Sleigh, describing how Hafizi used the computer she was sitting at to pull up a news article on the Internet about a stabbing outside the Studio Nightclub. “He went on to tell me that it was him who did it and he had stabbed him eight times,” said Sleigh, now 21 and pursuing a music career in Toronto.

Prosecutors allege that Hafizi lay in wait for Niran after Niran angered Hafizi with repeated requests for a cigarette inside the ByWard Market club.

Hafizi has admitted he was in a fight with Niran on the night in question but has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.

The jury has heard that the 24-year-old Niran was stabbed four times in the chest and stomach.

“He told me there was a fight, that everything went wrong,” said Sleigh. “He said he messed up and it all went wrong.”

The confession was the second time Hafizi had mentioned the killing to her, Sleigh said. The first time was a day or two earlier, when Hafizi asked if she had heard about the stabbing and wondered if it had scared her, but didn’t go into any further detail.

Sleigh said Hafizi’s admission left her feeling “like there was a golf ball in my throat.”

Sleigh said Hafizi told her he “felt horrible about everything,” but also that he had shut down his Facebook account and changed phone numbers “so he wouldn’t get caught.”

Despite those precautions, Hafizi figured he’d get arrested because he left the knife behind. A knife with the victim’s blood and Hafizi’s DNA on the handle was later recovered.

Sleigh testified she immediately texted three friends about Hafizi’s admission but didn’t speak to police until three nearly three months later, when they called her.