MANDEL: She helped accused killer escape, gets house arrest with gym time
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No wonder so many have lost confidence in the criminal justice system.
The love-struck woman who helped an accused killer escape after an innocent mom was killed outside a Leslieville safe-injection site was sentenced this week to house arrest, and according to Global News, with a lot of time allowed for her to head out to GoodLife Fitness every day to pursue her “rigorous fitness regime.”
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That easy sentence for accessory Khalila Mohammed is nothing short of outrageous.
Next month will mark two years since Karolina Huebner-Makurat, a beloved wife and mother of two young girls, was simply walking on Queen St. E. to lunch with a friend when she was cut down by a stray bullet.
She’d been caught in a shoot-out between rival drug dealers outside the nearby the South Riverdale Community Health Centre. And as Huebner-Makurat lay dying from a bullet that pierced her back and ripped through her liver, kidney and aorta, Mohammed, 23, was helping one of the accused escape.
Last December, Mohammed pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the crime of manslaughter.
Mohammed had worked for two years as a harm reduction community health worker and she’d spent a lot of time in the courtyard of the safe-injection site talking to one of the alleged dealers, Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim, who she called “Ben.”
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Ibrahim is accused of being part of the altercation that led to the brazen daylight exchange of gunfire on July 7, 2023 — but not one of the two alleged gunmen — and is facing charges of robbery and manslaughter.
In the agreed statement of facts, Mohammed admitted helping Ibrahim into the health centre to be treated for his wounds and then giving him a red hoodie to replace the bloody grey one he’d been wearing. She then escorted him out of the building, walked him a few blocks away and ordered him an Uber to Scarborough on her personal account.
Their friendship “blossomed into a romance” immediately after she helped him flee.
They were “prolific texters” and in their dozens of messages that followed, the agreed statement said Mohammed coached Ibrahim to stay out of sight and promised she wouldn’t divulge anything to police.
In their texts two days after the slaying, she advised him to “get out of the city” and “lay low,” told him he was special and offered to provide him with Percocet pills. She also assured him his jeans were “tucked away” and his grey sweatshirt was now “gone.”
Later, she told him two homicide detectives interviewed her but she told them nothing, including that she didn’t know how to get in touch with him, despite their being in constant contact.
“Khalila Mohammed clearly lied to police about her relationship and knowledge of Ben [Ibrahim] in the course of a homicide investigation where she knew that Ben was a suspect,” states the case synopsis.
As the investigation intensified, Mohammed texted Ibrahim to reassure him no one could make him out from the grainy cellphone video that had captured the altercation: “No face, no case,” she told him.
On July 20, the star-crossed lovers finally spent the night together at a Pickering Airbnb that Mohammed had rented for them.
But alas, the love affair ended on Aug. 14 when Mohammed was arrested.
Crown attorney Jay Spare had urged the judge to sentence Mohammed to two years in custody. Well-known criminal defence lawyer Brian Greenspan argued 18 months in the community would suffice.
Being an accessory after the fact during the manhunt for the suspects in Huebner-Makurat’s killing “extended the anguish of her husband, children, and other loved ones,” Ontario Court Justice Russell Silverstein said in his ruling Monday.
But he found Mohammed had pleaded guilty, expressed remorse, is now helping the prosecution and was a youthful first offender battling alcoholism at the time – so he spared her any prison time, sentencing her to two years less a day to be served in the community.
“Even though a conditional sentence does not involve incarceration, it can nonetheless be sufficiently strict that it satisfies all the objectives of sentencing in this case, including denunciation and deterrence, while also satisfying the need to demonstrate restraint.”
After deducting credit for pre-sentence custody and strict bail, Silverstein gave her a “strict” conditional sentence of 529 days — with the first 300 days under house arrest and the remainder with a curfew.
And let’s not forget — ample time to head to the gym.
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