Can They Appeal Murder Most Foul?

Of course they already have appealed. The Shafia trial of father, mother and oldest son on charges of first-degree murder of three daughters/sisters and wife/aunt is over. The jury was not out very long before returning with their verdict, after having been painstakingly instructed in the minutiae of the law by Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger, in Kingston, Ontario today.

Mohammad Shafia, Tooba Mohammad Yahya and Hamed Mohammad Shafia were found guilty as charged of first-degree murder. The evidence against them was overwhelming. Mohammad Shafia contended that his Afghan culture was misunderstood in Canada; what they say when they curse is not what it seems like; wishing one's daughters dead, as whore-spawns of the devil merely represents a casually-flung endearment.

And, as Tooba Mohammad testified tearfully, time and again, she is a mother, nothing more, nothing less. And mothers do not murder their children. Not even when they create dreadful havoc in the family by irremediably staining the family's honour through their odious behaviour, flaunting themselves shamelessly for all to see and gossip about the Shafia family.

The evidence amassed against the Shafias was simply overwhelming. Their defence, on the other hand, was underwhelming. Forensics identified shattered car parts from a vehicle that they vehemently insisted was not at the scene of the tragedy, but which matched the shattered portion of the family vehicle that went into the water at the Kingston Mills locks, when one vehicle nudged the other into the locks.

To have it appear, as the parents claimed, that a disobedient daughter took a family vehicle for a joyride with her two sisters and her 'aunt' in tow. Their original story was that they had no idea where the missing four family members were, until evidence put them at the scene, and then it was purportedly the brother Hamed, who had noted his sisters in the wee hours of the morning leaving and following them.

Following them, he claimed in an interview, too closely, and ending up inadvertently 'nudging' the back of their vehicle with the one he was driving. Stepping out of the vehicle to view the damage, and hearing simultaneously, a splash as the other vehicle entered the water, while he frantically called out his sisters' names, attempting to toss a life-saving rope into the water for them. Finally, shrugging fatalistically and leaving the scene. An accident. Unfortunate, but an accident.

As it happened, a young Afghan engineering student at Queen's University offered to act as their official interpreter from English to Farsi, while on the side he was engaged by Mr. Shafia to 'investigate' the crime, and uncover evidence that would prove their innocence, since the police were doing such a dreadful job of it by accusing them of murder in the guise of something they'd never ever heard of before: "honour killing".

Moosa Hadi, the amateur sleuth, inveigled his way into receiving a complete copy of the hard drive containing "Crown disclosure"; all the evidence that had been amassed throughout the investigation, including video-taped interviews, wiretapping conversations, witness statements and a forensic report. All of which he scrutinized and shared with the three accused to whom he had both authorized and unauthorized entry to their cells.

Moosa Hadi, clever young man, claiming he was convinced of the Shafias' innocence of the charges brought against them - for he could see they were good people, unjustly charged - together with the trumped-up evidence, created his own interpretation of what had occurred. And he patiently and exactingly spent hours in Hamed's jail cell coaching him on the scenario as he envisioned it, that led to the four women's deaths.

They died, according to Moosa Hadi, not because some truly evil skulduggery had taken place where they were first drowned or incapacitated, then placed in the family vehicle, and nudged by the other family car into the canal, where they 'drowned', but by misadventure. An eight-year-old boy who lives nearby the canal happened to have witnessed the event, seeing both vehicles, hearing the "splash" of vehicle entry into the canal.

Moosa Hadi's scenario took all the available evidence into account and gave a logical explanation for the trajectory of events, as far as he was concerned. And, as he claimed when he insisted the trio would eventually be acquitted and his assurance of their innocence validated, "it was not because of predictive power, rather it was because of my truthful, responsible, careful, extensive and lawful investigation."

This interfering little menace of a charlatan should be brought to justice himself, for tampering with evidence, and unduly influencing the guilty to pleading for a story that the evidence made hash of, prolonging the trial unnecessarily and trifling with justice through his concocted, egotistical, fanciful version of events.