‘Extraordinary brutality’: Life sentence for man who killed teen in Montreal drive-by - BERITAJA

The decease of a 15-year-old woman successful a drive-by shooting highlights the tragic consequences of weapon violence, a Quebec Superior Court judge said Thursday arsenic he handed a Montreal man 2 life sentences for his domiciled successful the crime.

Justice Yvan Poulin told a Montreal courtroom that Meriem Boundaoui’s tragic decease successful 2021 sheds ray connected the scourge of forbidden weapons trafficking.

“It costs the life of an guiltless victim, pinch nary relationship to the conflict, the targeted individuals aliases the events successful question,” he said. “It illustrates the actual consequences of weapon unit successful nationalist spaces, which must beryllium the entity of clear, patient and changeless denunciation.”

Poulin sentenced Salim Touaibi to life successful situation for Boundaoui’s decease and gave him a 2nd life condemnation for the attempted execution of 4 group who were adjacent erstwhile he started shooting. He has nary chance of parole for 25 years.

A assemblage convicted Touaibi past period of first-degree execution for pulling up to a car and opening fire, fatally shooting Boundaoui as she sat successful the rider spot of the targeted conveyance connected Feb. 7, 2021.

Poulin described Boundaoui as a bystander who was successful the incorrect spot astatine the incorrect clip and was caught successful the crossfire of a conflict betwixt 2 family businesses that did not interest her.

He said Touaibi had been “tracking” his rivals to termination them, to avenge 1 of his friends who had been beaten up arsenic portion of the conflict. The truth that he changeable the teen alternatively doesn’t make him immoderate little guilty, the judge said.

Poulin noted that respective members of Boundaoui’s ample family, including her parents and sister, had testified during a sentencing proceeding to the profound symptom and suffering her decease had caused.

“It is simply a mobility of lives turned upside down, of changeless and regular pain, a void that cannot beryllium filled, surgery dreams, hearts everlastingly broken, incomprehension, wasted lives, a emotion that thing is for illustration it was and a symptom that is difficult to describe,” the judge said.

Poulin besides noted that lasting harm was done to the attempted execution victims, whose identities are protected by a publication ban. One of the victims, who was changeable twice, testified to being forced to springiness up a promising tennis profession because of his injuries, which caused him profound beingness and intelligence suffering.

Another unfortunate was seen connected information cameras carrying Boundaoui’s lifeless assemblage successful his arms pursuing the shooting, successful what the judge described arsenic “a scary segment of bonzer brutality, leaving the group who were coming profoundly marked by the unit of the events.”

Touaibi said connected the guidelines during the proceedings that he was the shooter, but testified he didn’t realize Boundaoui or anyone other was successful the Jetta erstwhile he changeable astatine it intending to scare the group adjacent aft emotion threatened.

Poulin said Thursday that his type of events was not believed by the jury, and did not raise reasonable uncertainty about Touaibi’s guilt.

While reference his verdict, the judge noted that Touaibi led a “life marked by criminality” that included respective weapons-related offences. One of his arrests happened successful March 2022, much than a twelvemonth aft Boundaoui’s decease but anterior to his apprehension for her murder, he said.

Poulin said the harsh condemnation connected the attempted execution charges was justified for a number of reasons, including the brutality of the crime, number of victims, the usage of a firearm successful a nationalist place, the consequences connected the victims, and Touaibi’s anterior criminal grounds and the truth that he was connected probation erstwhile the crime occurred.

As for attenuating factors that would warrant a much lenient sentence, he said they were, “for each applicable purposes, nonexistent.”

Another man who was successful the car pinch Touaibi and faced the aforesaid charges was acquitted by the jury.

The decease of the precocious schoolhouse student shook Quebec’s Algerian organization and prompted wider calls for stronger measures to extremity weapon violence. Montreal’s politician and constabulary main later announced a caller constabulary portion targeting weapon traffickers successful the aftermath of her decease and that of 2 different teens the aforesaid year.