Man who attacked cabbie deserves jail: Crown
http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/07/04/man-who-attacked-cabbie-deserves-jail-crown
By Tony Spears ,Ottawa Sun
Walid Saraj used a metal rod to beat a cab driver who just wanted him to pay the fare.
His pal Bradley Bell then punched the man in the face.
The driver tumbled to the ground twitching, his brain leaking blood inside his fractured skull as the two men kicked him early on July 17, 2009 at Elgin St. and Gladstone Ave.
Crown prosecutor Stephen Donoghue returned the favour Wednesday, delivering a verbal lashing of his own as he asked Judge Robert Smith to sentence Saraj to five to six years in prison.
“He’s lying there in a pool of his own blood, basically convulsing,” Donoghue said. “They simply walk away and return home (leaving driver Abdinsaq Abdullahi) lying on the street, essentially left for dead.”
Defence lawyer Michel Bisson returned fire, pointing to the judge’s findings that Bell’s blow — the punch — had inflicted the worst damage to Abdullahi.
“In your own finding you have deemed Mr. Saraj to have less moral and legal culpability than Mr. Bell,” Bisson said.
Bisson asked for a sentence of time served — 262 days of pre-sentence custody that would work out to about 18 months with two-for-one credit.
Saraj, 25, came to Canada at age 12 with his mother and three siblings. They are all now proud Canadians, except for Saraj, who somehow never got citizenship.
Convicted of aggravated assault on the cabbie in January, Saraj now faces almost certain deportation back to Eritrea, where he will be “completely unsupported and without any contacts,” Bisson said.
Bisson also argued that Saraj should get a sentence similar to that of Bell, who got just over a year in jail and two years of probation.
But Donoghue retorted that Bell had pleaded guilty — to the lesser charge of assault causing bodily harm — and had also had shown remorse.
“There’s no remorse from Mr. Saraj,” Donoghue said.
The prosecutor also opposed granting two-for-one credit to Saraj for his dead time in the Innes Rd. lockup, where he sleeps on the floor as the third man in a cell meant for two.
Saraj only spent so much time in custody because he kept getting arrested after getting bail, Donoghue said.
The second time it happened, in 2011, a police raid had scooped him up for slinging crack downtown. Saraj got about a year in jail in September on that rap.
Smith will sentence Saraj on July 25.
tony.spears_at_sunmedia.ca
Twitter: _at_ottawasuntonys
Received on Thu Jul 05 2012 - 12:13:28 EDT
