Friday October 25, 2019
Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, 32, shown in a handout photo. A Crown prosecutor says a man accused of stabbing an Edmonton police officer and striking four pedestrians with a van went to extraordinary lengths to cause as much "chaos, destruction and indiscriminate death" as possible. HO / THE CANADIAN PRESS
A jury has found Abdulahi Hasan Sharif guilty on all five counts of attempted murder, after a three-week trial that was in part defined by what wasn’t discussed.
Sharif stood in the prisoner box and did not react as the jury delivered its verdict after 10 hours of deliberation that began Thursday.
Sharif faced 11 charges, including the five counts of attempted murder. He has been found guilty of all 11 charges.
The 32-year-old stood accused of ramming Const. Mike Chernyk with a car, stabbing him and later leading police on a high-speed pursuit through downtown Edmonton in a U-Haul truck.
The truck collided with four pedestrians during the chase, all of whom survived.
After police found an ISIS flag in the car used to strike Chernyk, then-Edmonton city police chief Rod Knecht said they were investigating the incidents as “acts of terrorism.” The detail made international news. However, the Crown never brought any terrorism-related charges, and the word “terrorism” was never uttered in front of the jury.
The Crown argued Sharif had intended to cause as much “chaos, destruction and indiscriminate death as possible” that night, without elaborating on motive. An amicus lawyer presenting another theory of the case, Greg Lazin, suggested Sharif might have simply been trying to flee police in the U-Haul.
Chief Crown prosecutor Shelley Bykewich gave a prepared statement outside court, thanking city police and wishing the victims well. She did not take questions, or elaborate on why the Crown chose not to call certain evidence.
Lazin, a lawyer for 37 years, said he’s never seen a case where an accused refused to cooperate to the extent Sharif did. He has never spoken to Sharif, despite Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil repeated recommendations Sharif do so.
“How do I explain it? I don’t. I can’t,” Lazin said.
A woman who was in a relationship with Sharif until the months before the incidents said he has cut off contact. She regularly tries to visit him in the Edmonton Remand Centre, but he refuses to speak to her.
The woman, who Postmedia is not identifying because she has concerns for her safety, felt she couldn’t leave Sharif because he is “mentally ill.”
Chaotic night
The story begins near Commonwealth Stadium on Sept. 30, 2017, where Chernyk was manning a game-day traffic post.
Just after 8 p.m., he heard an engine rev and saw headlights. He dove to his left but it was too late. Chernyk flew through the air, landing on his back a few feet away, near the parking lot of a Crown Liquor at 92 Street and 107A Avenue.
Two dog walkers ran to the downed officer’s aid. They assumed the driver had accidently hit Chernyk. They were a few feet away when Jacob Prince saw the driver emerge from the white Chevy Malibu. The driver had a knife.
The armed man, who the jury later determined was Sharif, fell upon Chernyk, stabbing first his protected chest and then his head. He eventually changed tactics, reaching for the officer’s gun with his free hand. Chernyk fought back, gained the advantage, and pushed the man off. The assailant ran north down 92 Street. Chernyk pulled his gun but didn’t have a clear shot. He didn’t follow for fear he’d pass out.
Police launched a manhunt. Sharif evaded them, and made his way to a U-Haul he had rented earlier that day.
Court saw video of Sharif renting the truck at a shop in Leduc. Tamara Gorman testified Sharif told her all the Edmonton U-Haul dealers were sold out because it was the end of the month. Gorman said Sharif initially wanted a larger truck but that the 15-footer was all they had.
Court heard Sharif then drove back to Edmonton, where he hailed a taxi at Kingsway Mall. The driver said he took a man driving a white car who matched Sharif’s description to the Leduc rental shop that afternoon.
At 11:31 p.m., several hours after the Chernyk attack, two officers at a traffic checkpoint at 112 Avenue and Wayne Gretzky Drive noticed the U-Haul in a line of vehicles. The first to spot it was rookie Const. Brodie Quenneville Thorpe, who had been on the street for just eight days. He told court the man behind the wheel matched the suspect description and had a noticeable lump on his forehead. The driver handed his licence to Thorpe’s partner, Sgt. Roy Paulino, but sped off southbound on Wayne Gretzky Drive while the officers confirmed the suspect’s name.
Thorpe and Paulino jumped in their cruiser. The U-Haul exited onto 106 Avenue, leading a growing tail of police vehicles down the hill to the Dawson Bridge. The police tactical unit quickly took command of the pursuit. Sgt. Scott Innes, the tactical lead that night, rode shotgun in a covert police SUV.
The U-Haul sped up the hill and tore through the turn at 95 Street and Jasper Avenue. The jury saw security camera footage of the truck as it made its way down Jasper Avenue, running red lights and driving left of centre.
At 109 Street, the U-Haul turned north, then immediately into the alley by the Pint Public House. One witness outside the bar heard tires screech, and saw the truck travel so close to that side of the bar that it lost its driver’s side mirror. The truck hit Paul Biegel, launching the 22-year-old over a barrier along the wall of the bar. A split second later, it hit Jack Zubick, who was a short distance down the alley.
Innes and Const. Jay Reinelt had turned north on 108 Street a few seconds earlier. When they saw headlights speeding down the alley, Reinelt threw the SUV in reverse. He wanted to end the pursuit by ramming the truck, but it glanced off without changing direction.
A block later, the truck turned south on 107 Street. It mounted the curb by Audreys Books and sent Jordan Stewardson and Kimberly O’Hara flying.
O’Hara told the jury the last thing she remembers that night was leaving a bowling alley in south Edmonton. She suffered a head injury and a broken leg and had no memory of even being on Jasper Avenue. For several weeks, she couldn’t understand verbal language.
Innes, by now back on Jasper, saw O’Hara slide across the road and into a pickup stopped at the traffic light. At first Innes thought he was looking at a piece of debris. He soon realized it was a woman’s body. He assumed she was dead. Innes barked an order into his police radio: “Guys, we need to take this vehicle right now.”
A police pickup driven by Const. Denis Plesa was by then the lead pursuit vehicle. He accelerated and hit the side of the U-Haul, tipping it on its side at 107 Street and 100 Avenue.
Tactical officers smashed the windshield and dragged Sharif out, after attempting to stun him with both a flash bang and stun guns. Innes rushed to inspect the back of the truck to make sure there were no explosives aboard. Not a single shot was fired during the entire incident.
Something ‘really bad’
Chief Knecht handed the investigation to the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) after learning details of the attack on Chernyk. INSET Sgt. Nedo Mirjanic took command that evening. He initiated a “massive” investigation that would ultimately involve 367 officers, many of whom spent the next day canvassing for surveillance video and eyewitnesses. It was one of the largest police investigations in Edmonton’s history.
One of those officers, an undercover RCMP operator pretending to be a drug dealer, was placed in police cells with Sharif the next morning. Sharif opened up to him, the officer testified. He told him he’d done something “really bad.” He’d hit a police officer after the cop flashed his lights at him. He had no insurance on his car, and panicked.
He later went to a U-Haul to which he had the keys.
“Mr. Sharif stated that at one point downtown, he hit three to five people with the U-Haul truck while he was trying to get away,” the undercover said. Sharif told him the night “was like a dream” and that he had wanted to kill himself.
The officer eventually stated how much he hated cops and mentioned what had happened to Chernyk. He testified that Sharif smiled, nodded, and gave him a fist “pump.”
Knecht later said their investigation into Sharif was stymied by an encrypted device. At a counter-terrorism forum in Melbourne last year, the former chief told an Australian newspaper Sharif had an unspecified encrypted device which they were not able to access.
“If we could have accessed that device it would have pushed the investigation forward, it would have demonstrated who else was involved because in situations where it looks like there was only one person involved, often times there was someone else who helped along the journey,” he said.
Sharif’s trial began two years after the attacks, on Oct 2, 2019. The Crown called over 40 witnesses, including Chernyk and the four pedestrians.
After three weeks of testimony, Bykewich closed by saying Sharif’s plan was to kill a police officer and stir up a response. He was still in the area hours later, she said, “because this was the next part of his plan. Bait the police and go out in a blaze of destruction.”
“Despite the accused’s best efforts to inflict chaos, destruction and indiscriminate death on the streets of Edmonton, he failed to kill anyone,” she said. “But that in no way diminishes his intent to kill.”
Sharif represented himself at trial, and declined to cross-examine any of the witnesses or testify in his defence. He earlier parted ways with high-profile defence attorney Tom Engel for reasons that remain unclear.
Lazin, who now lives in Victoria, was brought in as amicus curiae, a Latin term for “friend of the court.” He stressed to the jury that he was not Sharif’s lawyer, but presented evidence that could support alternate theories of the case.
He pointed to testimony from witnesses who said the U-Haul appeared to be out of control, suggesting Sharif may not have intentionally struck the pedestrians. He also raised evidence about whether he would have been able to see the pedestrians in the alley, and whether he veered to strike the two women.
To convict someone of attempted murder, Lazin said, the jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the person intended to kill someone.
“Recklessness, the intention to inflict harm, even significant harm, is not enough,” he said. “There has to be a specific intent to kill.”
Lazin added that while the U-Haul’s driving pattern could be interpreted as an attempt to kill people, the driver might “simply (be) looking for the easiest method of escape.”
Sharif refused Friday to participate in a pre-sentence report, a tool judges use in weighing punishments that often provides details on their backgrounds.
Sharif’s non-participation wasn’t the only unique aspect of the trial. The entire proceedings were translated into Somali by an interpreter, with each witness asked to speak in short sentences to allow time for translation.
Sentencing will take place Dec. 12 and 13.
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