At 2 in the morning, in March 2023, two Ottawa police officers stopped in a commercial square at the corner of Merivale and baseline roads to obtain food in a fast food restaurant when they noticed something strange in the lot: a parked red subaru, which was working, with someone asleep in the driver’s seat.
That someone turned out to be a 29 -year -old man known by the Police. And inside the vehicle, const. Anthony Kiwan and const. Ali Sabeh found everything they needed to keep it for a while.
In view of the rear seat there was a prohibited glock gun with a round in the camera and a prohibited magazine of excessive capacity capable of containing 30 rings together. The officers also found significant amounts of methamphetamine, cocaine, cracks and oxycodone pills. And to top it off, on his cell phone there were images and videos of man:
- Posing with 14 guns, sometimes with multiple guns in the same image, some of which were equipped with prohibited magazines of excess capacity.
- Prepare and pack what seemed drugs.
- Flaunting large lots of cash.
Everything that is in the car excluded during the trial
But last month, he left the Ottawa Palace of Justice, a free and innocent man after the trial against him collapsed.
All the evidence found in the Subaru was excluded because the officers had seriously violated the rights of the man’s letter. He was arrested under the pretext of a simulated disability driving investigation, falsified their reports, then continued the lie in the court under oath, according to the transcription of a decision reading in the Court last month by the judge of the Ontario Court, Mitch Hoffman.
The judge discovered that the officers quickly realized who the man was, that he had a history of crimes of firearms and that he was not affected. They should have told him the true reason why he was being arrested, a firearms investigation, instead of continuing the trick that thought he was intoxicated.
With the critical evidence that can no longer be used, the crown agreed that man should be declared not guilty of the more than two dozen firearm, drugs and other positions he faced.
CBC does not name it because it was acquitted.
‘Planned, bold, derogatory and abhorrent’
Hoffman told the court that Ottawa’s police infractions on the rights of man’s self -employed were “intentional” intentional “, flagrant, shocking and shameless.
“It was a planned, bold, contempt and abhorrent abuse of a vast power granted to the police from the first steps to its implementation, and significantly exacerbated by the joint company of both officers to deceive and deceive the court,” said the judge.
“This was almost as possible of a technical violation or an understandable error such as police officers can
get.”
The defense lawyer of man, Mark Etel, described the “brave” ruling. It is important to maintain the rights of all Canadians, he said, even if some people could find him offensive in cases like this, “because we have to maintain the integrity of a criminal justice system that must be above the reproach.”
Charter infractions are routinely argued in criminal courts, but after 33 years in the Defense Law, Etel said that he has never come out with such a strongly written decision, and that it is rare for a judge to make the conclusions of intentional deception in police investigations and the testimony. In addition, the evidence of prohibited gun was significant.
“A very serious affront is needed to the administration of justice so that an illegal firearm is excluded from the evidence,” Etel said.
In January, CBC News reported another Ottawa officer found by a judge who had deliberately lied in the Court. In that case, half a kilo of seized fentanyl and other evidence were excluded, collapsing the prosecution. Hoffman was largely based on the decision of that judge of the Superior Court in his ruling.
No system for monitoring, monitoring with officers
Kiwan, who was hired by Ottawa police in March 2020, no longer works for force. He resigned in May 2024, according to the president of the Ottawa Police Association, Matthew Cox. That was a few months before Hoffman ruled in August 2024 that the investigation had breached the rights of the letter of man. (Last month’s decision was to exclude evidence due to those violations).
Sabeh remains with patrol service.
ETEL does not believe that the Ottawa police service has any system to trace the violations of its officers, re -educate them, re -train or discipline them about those infractions, or even let them know when it is found that the infractions occurred in the Court.
Cox, the Chief of the Union that represents the civil and jurors of the Ottawa Police Service, confirmed it.
“There is no system,” said Cox, who has 21 years of police experience. “His usual officer is only calling a call to call, and then he has to attend the Court for several different cases, and they really do not follow up and have any knowledge of what really happened in the case.”
Such a system should be “absolutely,” Cox said, perhaps more a shock absorber between the police and the crown to act as a link. The prosecutors of the crown, who see what becomes testimony and police evidence, should transmit any finding of rape so that the officers involved can obtain more training and learn from it, or even be disciplined if it happens repeatedly, he said.
Cox respects Hoffman’s decision, but added that “many” cases of non -compliance with the letter do not involve the police that really lie in court. More often, it is the Junior officers who have not testified much, being stumbled by highly experienced defense lawyers.
The Ottawa police service did not answer questions until the deadline and did not answer similar questions about the previous case in January.
