Defence says quadruple murder case 'makes no sense'

Hamed Shafia, one of three defendants in a multiple murder case, is escorted by police officers from a holding cell at the Frontenac County Courthouse in Kingston, Ont., on Wednesday.

KINGSTON, Ont. — The prosecution theory that three members of a Montreal family murdered four others in an honour killing is “preposterous” and built on “weak” circumstantial evidence that “makes no sense,” jurors at the Shafia trial were told by defence lawyer Patrick McCann.

In a critical, 2 1/2-hour address to jurors Wednesday, McCann said the only reasonable conclusion is that the victims died in an accident and the accused, Mohammad Shafia, 58, his second wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, are not guilty.

“Hamed is guilty of being stupid, morally blameworthy . . . but other than that he was not responsible for the girls’ death, nor were his parents and (it’s) time to put an end to this Kafka-esque 2 1/2 years they’ve been going through,” said McCann, who represents Hamed. He was the last of the three defence lawyers to address jurors.

The accused each pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder. Sisters Zainab Shafia, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, who was Shafia’s first wife in the polygamous family, were found dead on June 30, 2009. They had drowned. Investigators could not determine where and how the victims died.

The bodies were recovered from a Nissan Sentra submerged in a shallow canal at Kingston Mills, a lock station on the Rideau Canal in eastern Ontario. Prosecutors allege the scene was staged to look like a joyride that ended in tragedy. The family has said Zainab took the car without permission and crashed it into the canal.

Prosecutors allege that the killers had to improvise, using the family’s other vehicle, a Lexus SUV, to push the Nissan over a stone ledge into the water when it became stuck. Pieces of broken Lexus headlight plastic were found at the canal and the damage on the two vehicles was matched.

Hamed, who did not testify at the trial, told a man hired by his father to investigate, after the trio was arrested, that he was at the canal when the car went into the water.

McCann said this account by Hamed is the only one that makes sense.

Hamed told the investigator that he was driving the Lexus and followed his joyriding sister to Kingston Mills some time after 2 a.m. on June 30. Hamed said he collided with the smaller car when it stopped suddenly.

Hamed told the man that while he was picking up broken pieces of headlight, he heard a splash, ran to the edge of the canal and realized that the Nissan had gone into the water. Hamed, then 18, said he dangled a rope in the water, but he did not call 911 or tell his parents, who were at a nearby motel, what had happened. Instead, he drove to Montreal and staged a fake accident to conceal the damage to the Lexus.

“He made a terrible, terrible decision, thinking, ‘No one knows I came here, I could be somehow responsible,’ ” McCann said, while insisting that “there is not a single piece of evidence that says what he says happened could not have happened.”

In many conversations Hamed had with police officers after the deaths, he never revealed the crash story.

McCann said there is a critical piece of cellphone evidence that undercuts the prosecution theory. He said cell data shows that Sahar’s cellphone was in a sector near the Kingston motel where the family stopped on June 30 at 1:36 a.m.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, is perhaps one of the most important pieces of evidence in the trial, that almost disproves the Crown theory,” he said. McCann suggested the record indicates that the Nissan was not at the canal at a time when the prosecution maintains that it was there.

Prosecutor Laurie Lacelle, who addressed jurors after McCann, described Hamed’s account as something he “cooked up” to conceal the murders, a “complete and total fabrication.”

She pointed to several small bits of evidence that, taken together, she said reveal that it was not an accident.

She noted the Nissan’s headlights were off when it was found underwater. The engine was off, none of the four people was seat-belted in and the front seats were reclined at a steep angle. These factors suggest no one was driving the car when it went into the water, she said.

“They were most certainly incapacitated and most likely dead before the car went into the water,” Lacelle said.

The prosecutor said jurors have heard ample evidence that Shafia adhered to a strict cultural code that required obedience from his female family members, over whom he sought to maintain control. Lacelle said that when Zainab ran away from home in April 2009 to a shelter, it was the final insult among a string of problems with the girls.

“That’s when the plan to kill her began,” Lacelle said.

She said that Sahar began secretly dating, Geeti was defiant and Rona supported the three girls and may also have sought a divorce.

“Rona, Zainab, Sahar and Geeti shared a bond of love for one another and they also shared another bond, the desperate desire to escape the Shafia household,” Lacelle said.

She reminded the jurors that the three accused were the last people to see the victims alive and they are the only people with a motive to kill them.

Lacelle will continue her closing address on Thursday.