By Canadian Press

Jury retires in Ibrahim Ali’s marathon B.C. murder trial

Dec 7, 2023 | 5:28 PM

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia Supreme Court jury has retired to deliberate in the first-degree murder trial of Ibrahim Ali, more than eight months after he pleaded not guilty to killing a 13-year-old girl in a Metro Vancouver park in 2017.

Justice Lance Bernard told the jurors they must consider all the evidence presented since the trial began last April and determine whether the Crown had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Ali sexually assaulted the girl and killed her in the course of the attack.

He said the Crown’s case is circumstantial, requiring the jury to infer that the only reasonable conclusion is that Ali forced the girl off a path and into a wooded area in Burnaby’s Central Park, where he raped and fatally strangled her.

Bernard said Ali’s lawyers had meanwhile argued that semen inside the girl’s body that matched Ali’s DNA could have been the result of an earlier encounter with an “innocent explanation” and Ali isn’t the person who killed her and dumped her body in the park.

The body of the girl, whose name is covered by a publication ban, was found just hours after her mother reported her missing in July 2017.

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Ali’s lawyer Kevin McCullough told the jury earlier in the trial that the defence team would not be calling evidence, saying the Crown hadn’t met the burden of proof.

Thursday’s hearing began with a request from Crown lawyers to enter in-camera proceedings, without the public or media present.

McCullough later told Bernard he wanted to make submissions about the instructions to the jury, calling them “fraught” with mistakes.

But the judge declined and proceeded to call in the jury.

Bernard told the jurors they have four possible options for the verdict: finding Ali guilty of first-degree murder as charged, finding him guilty of the lesser charges of second-degree murder or manslaughter, or finding him not guilty entirely.

He said they may disagree on issues during their deliberations, but the jury’s ultimate verdict must be unanimous.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 7, 2023.

The Canadian Press