A lawyer for Ibrahim Ali in his first-degree homicide trial says police instructed him an individual near the proceedings introduced a handgun into the Vancouver courtroom on Friday with “intent to kill.”
Kevin McCullough says police instructed him the Glock firearm was loaded.
McCullough says he and his spouse had been known as to the Victoria Police Division on Sunday, the place officers knowledgeable them of the incident. McCullough’s observe is predicated in Victoria.
The trial concluded Friday after a B.C. Supreme Court docket jury convicted Ali of killing a 13-year-old woman in a Burnaby, B.C., park in 2017. The woman’s title can’t be reported due to a publication ban.
Victoria police affirm the investigation into the alleged incident at B.C. Supreme Court docket is ongoing, and directed inquiries to the Vancouver Police Division.
CBC has reached out to the Vancouver Police Division for additional data, and a spokesperson for the B.C. Prosecution Service declined to remark.
McCullough had requested on Friday the proceedings be moved to a safe courtroom in gentle of what he mentioned was a “litany of loss of life threats” in opposition to defence legal professionals and their households.
The B.C. Supreme Court docket in Vancouver doesn’t have metallic detection and different safety checks for all courtrooms.
Courtroom 20 within the Vancouver court docket advanced is surrounded by bulletproof glass that separates the general public gallery from legal professionals, the decide, defendants and the jury.
However Justice Lance Bernard mentioned he didn’t know if one other court docket was obtainable and the transfer didn’t happen.
“I’m fearful for my security, the security of my co-counsel, Mr. [Ben] Lynskey, and the security of Mr. Ali in any respect court docket appearances,” McCullough mentioned in an interview with The Canadian Press Monday.
“It’s a tragic day when defence counsel, or people who find themselves being zealously represented, and in some way that turns right into a society the place they need defence counsel to be damage, killed, intimidated and threatened.”
In hearings with out the jury current final week, McCullough learn out a observe he mentioned he acquired that threatened him and his household with violent deaths.
“It would occur earlier than Christmas. The very last thing you’ll know is that your loved ones suffers just like the youngster suffered. I’m suicidal attributable to childhood predators in search of somebody to trigger ache to. I’ll burn myself alive,” the observe learn.
The primary Crown proof in opposition to Ali was semen discovered contained in the woman’s physique that was a DNA match with the accused.
McCullough instructed the jury in his closing arguments that the woman was not an “harmless” youngster because the Crown had portrayed, that she was a teen and that it wasn’t “outlandish” to counsel she could have discovered Ali enticing.