Lawyer’s illness delays murder trial

A first-degree murder trial that was scheduled to begin Monday in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench has been delayed after Walid Adam Mohamed’s lawyer told the judge she was in pain and needed medical attention.

The case was adjourned until the afternoon, when court learned Lori Johnstone-Clarke was hospitalized.

Crown prosecutor Matthew Miazga indicated he had several witnesses — some of whom had flown to Saskatoon — ready to testify Monday. The trial by judge alone was adjourned until this morning. It is scheduled to last 10 days.

Mohamed, 30, is accused of fatally stabbing 18-year-old Mohammed Omar in a parking lot in the city’s Sutherland neighbourhood on April 24, 2016.

Relatives of Omar, who are from Winnipeg, sat in the courtroom’s front row as they learned the trial would be delayed. Family members of the accused sat in the back row.

Omar’s death was the fifth homicide of 2016. His father, Khattab Karim, told the StarPhoenix that, according to police, his son was initially stabbed in a car in a parking lot on Central Avenue. He was then repeatedly stabbed after he ran across the street to a Mac’s convenience store, Karim said.

Family members also confirmed that Mohamed and Omar knew each other through the Muslim community in Saskatoon.

Omar had recently moved to the city to help take care of a friend’s autistic child.

“He was like a flower among the community. He helped all the kids,” the child’s father, Aarif Jomha, said after Mohamed made his first court appearance last year.