Accessories To The Crime

The Islamic Republic of Iran gleefully noted the street-murder of 16-year-old Yazdan Ghiasvand Ghiasi last year, shot in Ottawa as he was sitting in a vehicle, and then tossed out of the car as it sped off. Purportedly a drug deal that went wrong. What kind of country is Canada, that such dreadful things occur in the street, a young boy of Iranian extraction so heartlessly murdered, Iran thundered, sanctimoniously scandalized.

Well, it would seem to ordinary Canadians that there might be something awry with the seeming inclination of immigrants with a Muslim background, who seem to turn, disproportionate to their numbers in society, to crime. This is obviously a response that would never pass the lips of Canadian diplomats, nor for that matter anyone who respects the dictionary of political correctness.

Yet Muslim youth appear drawn to the easy pickings and the adventurous excitement of crime on a micro- and macro-level, from drug dealing to murder, in greater numbers than their demographic seems to warrant. Young Ghiasi was shot in the heart by Mohamed Webbe; the dispute evidently occasioned over a bag of drugs, on a residential downtown street.

One shot killed the boy, hitting him directly in the heart; the other went skyward, shattering the sunroof of the blue Nissan Maxima involved in the tragedy. Two others, Abdulhamid Wehbe and Mohamed Webbe are also charged, with 2nd-degree murder, while Mohamed fled Canada; all in the family, as it were.

The trial of 18-year-old Zakaria Dourhnou has just concluded. He is a young man, previously in trouble with authorities and on probation, which included the court-ordered condition that he was meant to live with his mother who would monitor his activities. His mother, evidently having little respect for such conditions, allowed her son to live elsewhere, and paid for his apartment.

And it was in the parking lot of that apartment that the murder vehicle ended up. Mr. Dourhnou was instructed to clean up the incriminating evidence, as a gesture of friendship. And he was not averse to doing just that; police watched as Dourhnou and another teen, Khaled Webbe, obligingly set about cleaning up gunshot residue and blood.

"Mr. Dourhnou was acting for a friend in order to defeat a criminal investigation, by destroying evidence. the relevance of DNA evidence is well known ... It was obvious by the state of the vehicle that a serious altercation had taken place", stated Ontario Court Justice Celynne Dorval, in arriving at her decision.

A year in prison, over the 135 days already spent behind bars awaiting trial, a ban from possession of any weapons for five years, probation for three years. And his lawyer is outraged.