He’s the last one standing of five men originally charged with the shocking daylight kidnapping of a 14-year-old boy who’s half-brother had ripped off 90 kilos of cocaine from some very angry drug dealers.
And from the skeptical questions posed to the Crown by the judge overseeing the trial of Samir Abdelgadir, it looks like the fifth suspect could walk ,as well.
In her closing submissions, Crown attorney Erin Pancer conceded to Superior Court Justice Sandra Nishikawa that of the five originally charged in the brazen abduction of the boy from outside his Driftwood Ave. townhouse, there wasn’t enough evidence to bring four to trial on kidnapping: Alleged drug trafficker Scott McManus had his charges stayed and is now on the run from other charges; Hamed Shahnawaz and Solaiman Nassimi pleaded guilty instead to torching the Jeep Wrangler used in the kidnapping, while fourth suspect Liban Hussein had his kidnapping charges dropped following a preliminary hearing and was later murdered.
Pancer maintained Abdelgadir was either involved in the kidnapping on March 4, 2020 or knew about it and aided the kidnappers on behalf of the drug dealers bent on using the boy as a pawn to get their cocaine back.
The victim’s half-brother, Olalekan Osikoya, testified he was paid $10,000 a month to work as a drug courier for McManus and Giovanni Raimondi and delivered kilos several times a month to Abdelgadir. But when his pay became erratic, he stole a shipment in June 2019, offloaded most to another dealer, pocketed $500,000 for 15 kilos, and fled the country.
Nine months later, when he got a call rather than a usual text from his half-brother’s phone, Osikoya testified it wasn’t the teen but the “distinctive” voice of Abdelgadir, who told him to return what he took — or else.
According to the agreed statement, the Grade 9 student was snatched on his way to the parking lot where his father was waiting to take him to school. As he screamed for help, he was tackled to the ground and thrown into a stolen Jeep Wrangler.
Witnesses called 911, but because the boy wasn’t reported missing until nine hours later — his father assumed he’d taken the bus to school — police didn’t see any evidence of an abduction.
Three vehicles were seen on passing TTC bus cameras driving in tandem toward and away from the kidnapping: the Jeep Wrangler, a Mercedes GLE and a Chevrolet Tahoe.
Pancer told the judge Abdelgadir is closely linked to two of the three. His home, which included Raimondi as one of its three owners, was under surveillance during an unrelated OPP investigation and a camera captured the same Tahoe parked in his driveway on the day before the kidnapping and being driven away an hour before the abduction.
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The Tahoe was later captured on video near the Brampton mansion where the boy was tied up and held in the basement for 36 hours before he was released half-naked on a rural property.
The prosecutor said earlier surveillance video from Palace Pier, where Raimondi lived, also shows Abdelgadir driving the same Mercedes GLE later seen at the kidnapping.
The judge wondered how we know that if Abdelgadir was in the Tahoe, he was aware a kidnapping was about to take place?
“There was no way that these three cars all met together, all drove together to 345 Driftwood, sat there while a 14-year-old was grabbed, dragged, thrown into a car, screaming,’Help me. Help me,’” Pancer said, “and whoever was in the Tahoe, we say it’s Abdelgadir, somehow didn’t know that he was going to be kidnapped that morning.”
Abdelgadir’s lawyer Manbir Sodhi told the judge the Crown’s theory makes no sense.
“There’s no reason in the world for him to be involved in this,” he insisted.
The authorities believed the stolen coke belonged to Raimondi and/or McManus, Sodhi said, adding, “No one ran on the theory that it was Mr. Abdelgadir’s cocaine. There was nothing to say their motive was his motive. On what evidence? There’s a close association?”
Abdelgadir wasn’t the only one seen driving the Tahoe, and there’s no proof he was behind the wheel when the boy was snatched, he said. Osikoya’s identification of Abdelgadir’s voice isn’t trustworthy, he argued, nor is Shahnawaz, who testified Abdelgadir confessed to the botched kidnapping, when he might be the real kidnapper.
“There is mass amount of reasonable doubt,” Sodhi concluded.
The trial will reconvene briefly before Nishikawa reserves her decision.