Murder or defending himself? Now it’s up to jury

Dia-eddin Hanan readily admits he fired the bullets that killed one man and paralyzed another in his Windsor backyard on Dec. 23, 2015.

But it was self-defence, his lawyer told jurors in a closing statement Tuesday following a four-week Superior Court trial.

No, it was murder, a lawyer for the Crown countered in the prosecution’s closing arguments a short time later.

Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe is expected to take at least half a day Wednesday reading his instructions to the jury before it begins deliberations on which side to believe.

The defendant’s version of what happened is “not believable, not plausible, incapable of raising a reasonable doubt,” said assistant Crown attorney George Spartinos. “Mr. Hanan’s version defies common sense.”

But defence lawyer Christopher Uwagboe argued that the Crown’s main witness, the man shot three times and left paralyzed, provided “a ridiculous story,” and he advised jurors they need to have “very serious reservations about trusting any word that comes out of Gregory Henriquez’s mouth.”

Uwagboe painted Henriquez, 39, an American living at the time in Windsor, and Alekesji Guzhavin, 30, of London, who was killed that night, as two unsavoury men with criminal records who set out to threaten and muscle cash out of Hanan.

Uwagboe read out Guzhavin’s long criminal record that included convictions for drugs, guns and violence. At the time of his death he’d only been out on bail a short time after being charged with two counts of attempted murder following a drive-by shooting on Howard Avenue that almost killed a passerby. He said Hanan knew Guzhavin was a “dangerous” man and was fearful of him.

When Guzhavin and Henriquez, also out on bail at the time and facing drug trafficking charges in Windsor and Toronto, suddenly showed up at Hanan’s Oak Street home. These “very dangerous guys” threatened him and his young family, “something had to happen,” said Uwagboe.

While the dead man was “certainly no angel, far from it,” Spartinos said Hanan, who also has a criminal record, described a scene straight out of “a bad action movie — it’s preposterous, it just didn’t happen.”

Hanan took the witness stand in his own defence during the trial and described how Guzhavin came unannounced to his home, armed with a gun and demanding money, and that he managed to snatch away the firearm and then keep it while wrestling with the two other, much larger, men.

Spartinos said “this life-and-death struggle,” with kicks and punches, ended with “nary a scratch on Mr. Hanan. The reason he has no injuries is that there was no struggle — it just didn’t happen.”

Hanan testified it was rainy and pitch-black and he shot into the dark in self-defence after hearing what he thought were shots being fired at him.

Spartinos pointed to an audio tape from a neighbouring building which recorded nine shots at the time of the encounter. He cited a forensic pathologist who testified that Guzhavin suffered seven gunshot wounds and Henriquez had three gunshot injuries.

“For a life-and-death struggle in the dark, that’s a remarkable display of marksmanship,” Spartinos said of a man who described having shot blindly into the dark.

“Mr. Hanan’s version defies common sense,” said Spartinos, who argued it was Hanan who brought the gun.