Ibrahim Ali trial: Judge rejects bid to throw out murder conviction

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has rejected an application to throw out the conviction of Ibrahim Ali for the murder of a 13-year-old in Burnaby, B.C., over what his lawyers say were unreasonable delays in the trial process.

Justice Lance Bernard made the ruling, with reasons to follow, moments after defence lawyer Kevin McCullough made his final rebuttal in the application that could have seen Ali go free.

A jury found Ali guilty on Dec. 8 of first-degree murder in the death of the girl whose body was found in Burnaby’s Central Park in July 2017.

McCullough had filed the so-called Jordan application on the grounds that too much time had passed between his client being charged and the trial concluding, a limit the Supreme Court of Canada has set at 30 months.

He said his client had been in custody for 63 months, more than double the limit.

But Crown lawyer Daniel Porte blamed the delays mostly on the defence and “discrete exceptional events,” including the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said if those events were subtracted, it would have only taken about 25 months to conclude the trial, which is within the High Court’s threshold.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 11, 2024.