Youth convicted of murder in 2021 ‘revenge’ killing over social media post

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Mehdi El-Hajj Hassan was shot to death execution-style over a perceived insult he posted on social media about the fatal overdose of a neighbourhood friend, a judge has found.

A teenager who was a close friend of the overdose victim exacted revenge and shot El-Hajj Hassan six times through his car window at 3 a.m. on Jan. 16. 2021.

The shooter, who was 17 at the time and cannot be named under the provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was found guilty last month of first-degree murder in El-Hajj Hassan’s “execution-style” killing.

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According to evidence at the youth’s trial, El-Hajj Hassan was killed over a social media post in which he wrote: “I’m smokin’ a Skini pack.”

Skini was the nickname of the overdose victim, and witnesses who testified at the trial said the youth considered the post to be “extremely disrespectful street slang” and an insult to his deceased friend.

Crown prosecutors said the youth set up the killing as “revenge” against El-Hajj Hassan “for having insulted or mocked (the youth’s) very close friend, who died of an overdose in (the youth’s) presence several months before.”

According to trial evidence, El-Hajj Hassan was “lured” to the scene by a young woman who was a mutual friend of the shooter and the overdose victim.

The young woman was also a minor at the time of the murder and her identity is likewise protected by a publication ban.

She testified at the trial and told the judge she had no idea that El-Hajj Hassan would be killed.

She received a message on Snapchat from the shooter on the evening of the killing, in which he told her, “Let’s deal with the ’Topaz’ situation.”

She testified that El-Hajj Hassan was known around the Greenboro neighbourhood by the nickname “Topaz.”

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She said she was offered $500 to “set up Topaz” but she refused the money, saying she would do it in honour of their deceased friend.

She reached out to El-Hajj Hassan and, around 2 a.m., he agreed to meet her at the neighbourhood baseball diamond “for a smoke.”

The girl said she then sent a message to the youth advising him that El-Hajj Hassan was on his way to Bruff Park, a baseball diamond near the intersection of Hunt Club Road and Lorry Greenberg Drive.

She testified that she believed the youth would be waiting in the bushes when El-Hajj Hassan arrived and he would “drag him out of his car to beat him up and embarrass him.”

The youth never told her he owned a gun, she testified, and she denied “any knowledge that there was going to be a murder.”

She said she made her way to the park, but El-Hajj Hassan wasn’t there. She then noticed police emergency lights flashing nearby and made her way to the scene of the shooting.

According to the Crown’s timeline of the killing, El-Hajj Hassan had arrived at the park at 2:51 a.m.

About 15 minutes prior to his arrival, the youth arrived in a white car and parked out of sight along a pedestrian pathway.

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Witnesses heard nine gunshots fired in rapid succession, according to the timeline, then heard three more shots about 20 seconds later.

The white car was seen departing minutes later, and a photo of the “vehicle of interest” was later circulated by Ottawa police.

A forensic pathologist determined that El-Hajj Hassan was struck with at least six bullets to the left side of his body as the shots passed through the driver’s window and the car door.

Investigators determined the likely angle of the shots meant the killer would have been standing at the driver’s side of the vehicle and would have been no more than nine metres away.

El-Hajj Hassan continued driving a short distance after he was shot, crossed a median and crashed into another car and a fence near a McDonald’s restaurant on Hunt Club Road.

About an hour after the shooting, the youth attempted to contact the girl who arranged the rendezvous with El-Hajj Hassan.

He also placed a call to the brother of “Skini,” according to cell phone records, about seven minutes after the shooting.

The cell phone evidence showed that the youth was in the vicinity of the shooting at the relevant time, according to the judge’s trial summary, and the records also indicated the youth left Ottawa shortly after the murder and headed to Toronto, then to Sudbury and Thunder Bay.

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He was only arrested several months later when he returned to Ottawa and he, too, became the victim of a shooting.

Police were called to the scene of a shooting on Aug. 26, 2021 and arrived to find two males on the sidewalk being treated by paramedics for gunshot wounds.

One of the constables recognized the youth and placed him under arrest for first-degree murder and possession of a firearm.

The youth had a single gunshot wound to his leg but appeared otherwise healthy, according to the judge’s summary.

He was taken to hospital, assessed and treated and then released into police custody the following day.

According to a ruling from Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger, the youth gave “highly inculpatory” statements to police during an interrogation following his arrest.

He was asked by the detective, “Where do you think you f—ed up in this whole thing?”

The youth replied, “Talking to (the girl).”

He said his next mistake involved “people calling me on the phone.”

He then acknowledged his mistake in allowing his cell phone to “ping” off towers that pinpointed his movements in Ottawa, then tracked his route as he fled the city.

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“What else you could have done differently with your cell phone?” the detective asked him.

“Dump it and turn it off,” the youth replied. “I don’t know.”

That statement to police “was tantamount to an admission of responsibility,” Maranger wrote.

“His acknowledgement of his mistakes or ‘f— ups’ in speaking to (the girl) and by not turning off or ditching his cell phone at the material time, unmistakably connect him to the crime. I see no other logical inference to be drawn from the statement,” the judge said in his decision.

Intercepted cell phone communications also disclosed the youth’s “familiarity with and customary possession of weapons,” namely nine-millimetre handguns.

Maranger said the inference was that the youth had the “knowledge, familiarity and possible gun possession in and around the time of the shooting.”

The youth’s defence lawyers, Joe Addelman and Akiva Sheivari, suggested there were “reasonable inferences to be drawn from the totality of the evidence” that could have implicated a different shooter.

“With respect, I do not agree,” Maranger wrote in his ruling, as he found the youth guilty of first-degree murder.

ahelmer@postmedia.com

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