Toronto police are investigating a fatal crash involving a taxi and a skateboarder near King and Jarvis streets. (CBC

Taxi driver charged with 2nd-degree murder of skateboarder
CBC News Posted: May 15, 2012 8:57 AM ET Last Updated: May 15, 2012 1:56 PM ET
Toronto police are investigating a fatal crash involving a taxi and a skateboarder near King and Jarvis streets. (CBC)

A Toronto taxi driver has been charged with second-degree murder after a skateboarder was killed in a collision on Monday.

Adib Ibrahim, 43, was charged after police were called to investigate a collision at the intersection of King Street East and George Street just after 6 p.m. ET.

The skateboarder, identified as 28-year-old Ralph Bissonnette, was thrown to the curb and his skateboard snapped in two. He was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries but was pronounced dead on arrival.

The circumstances surrounding the collision are not clear.

Homicide detectives are now leading the investigation and are asking witnesses to come forward.

Ibrahim was remanded into custody after appearing in court on Tuesday. His next court appearance is scheduled for May 22.

Friends and fellow cab drivers gathered in court on Tuesday, in support of the accused.

A driver named Elias Abrahim told CBC News that Ibrahim has been driving a cab for 15 years and is originally from Ethiopia. He has a wife and two children and lives in the west end of the city.

Abrahim said his friend’s long service as a cab driver is a testament to his careful nature on the road.

“I told you he’s been driving over 15 years, this shows you how much [of a] careful driver he is,” he said.

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Winnipeg Sun

The victim, Mohamed Omar

Police have made an arrest in the 2011 homicide of Mohamed Omar.

Omar, a father of four, was gunned down outside the Lincoln Motor Hotel on McPhillips Street early Sunday, Oct. 30. A 17-year-old boy was also shot, but recovered.

On May 8, they arrested a suspect. Abdul Bangura, 26, was located near Louelda Avenue and Antrim Street and arrested on second-degree murder and attempted murder charges.

Bangura has been detained at the Provincial Remand Centre.

Omar and a group of associates were leaving the hotel early that day when a gunman pulled up in a sport utility vehicle.

A vehicle carrying the teenage victim managed to drive off and get to a hospital, leaving only Omar at the scene. Paramedics rushed Omar to hospital in critical condition, but he didn’t survive.

Sources say Omar, 28, had ties the African Mafia, an assertion friends dispute.

Danger here trumps danger there, court rules as violent refugee deported to Somalia

Adrian Humphreys

If Sharmarke Mohamed was from a European country, he would have been booted out of Canada long ago, but because he came here from wartorn Somalia, he has been allowed to linger, causing mayhem through his escalating violence, a Federal Court judge declared before deciding that enough is enough.

Despite Mohamed having been granted refugee protection after fleeing to Canada — and a plea from the United Nations that he not be sent home to “one of the most dangerous places on earth” — his drug and alcohol-fuelled crimes pose such a danger to Canada he must be sent back regardless, Justice Sean Harrington has ruled.

Chief Justice Pierre Blais, of the Federal Court of Appeal, upheld the decision, clearing the way for the controversial deportation of the Vancouver resident.

On April 16, Mohamed was deported, federal records show.

It is unusual for Canada to deport someone to a country where it is clear they might be in significant danger. The rulings make it clear there are limits to that tradition.

“There is a risk to his life [in Somalia]. He is at risk of losing his life in an act of random violence,” Justice Harrington wrote in his decision.

“[But] he has been convicted of various crimes, with greater violence being evident… His anger management issues have been fuelled by drugs and alcohol,” he wrote when rejecting Mohamed’s appeal of his deportation.

Congolese ex-diplomat accused of war crimes gets Supreme Court hearing
By Peter Henderson, Postmedia News April 26, 2012 4:54 PM Be the first to post a comment

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OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada said Thursday it will hear the refugee appeal of Rachidi Ekanza Ezokola, a former diplomat from the Democratic Republic of Congo accused of complicity in war crimes.

The case could redefine how this country considers culpability for war crimes.

“It’s a big relief for us,” said Jared Will, the Toronto lawyer who represents Ezokola. “The scope of the definition of complicity has gone well beyond where it should be, and this gives us a chance to correct that.”

Wilkerno Dragon was declared a hostile witness at 2008 trial into Raymond Ellis’s killing

By Paul Cherry, the Gazette

Raymond Ellis was slain in a case of mistaken identity during a gang war

MONTREAL – A street gang member who was at the very heart of a controversy that saw a murder trial tossed out has been ordered deported.

Wilkerno Dragon, 27, was a crown witness in the trial of five men accused of killing Raymond Ellis, a 25-year-old Dawson College graduate who was stabbed to death in a case of mistaken identity. Ellis was killed on Oct. 23, 2005, in a club on St. Denis St. A large group of people tied to a Blues-affiliated street gang mistakenly thought he was a rival gang member. They believed Ellis, who was not part of a gang, had killed Passius Rydewood, a member of the Blues.

With a second-degree murder trial against five men in full stride, by November 2008, Dragon was called to testify about what he saw the night Ellis was killed. But he gave curt answers to prosecutor Louis Bouthillier’s questions, which caused the crown attorney to ask to suspend his testimony. Dragon, who was in a provincial detention centre at the time, was declared a hostile witness and the jury hearing the trial instead listened to recordings of previous testimony he gave during a preliminary inquiry.

The police began investigating evidence that Dragon was offered $15,000, by one of the accused, to recant his testimony. Bouthillier was aware of the investigation and sought to delay the trial so the Montreal police could complete their probe to find out who had offered to bribe Dragon. But Bouthillier failed to disclose to the court that the bribery investigation was the reason he asked for a delay. This caused Superior Court Justice Sophie Bourque to permanently suspend the trial. Last year, the Quebec Court of Appeal reversed Bourque’s decision and ordered a new trial.

Dragon is not likely to be called upon as a witness again, but he might not even be in Canada when the trial begins. The next date in the case has been set for Dec. 3.

By Gemma Karstens-Smith, Postmedia News

The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear the case of a white South African who has been seeking refugee status based on his race.

The country’s top court announced Thursday it would not hear the case of Brandon Carl Huntley.

He has said he fears discrimination, harassment and possible death if he goes back to his native country. He said he has been attacked and assaulted a number of times by black South African who used racial slurs.

Huntley applied for refugee status in 2008 after coming to Canada on a work permit in 2004.

The Immigration and Refugee Board found Huntley to be a refugee based on a “well-founded fear of persecution on the ground of his race.”

In his written decision, tribunal chair William Davis said Huntley “would stand out like a ‘sore thumb’ due to his colour in any part of the country.”

He also said that evidence presented in the case showed a “picture of indifference or inability or unwillingness of the government and the security forces to protect White South Africans from persecution by African South Africans.”