a young Ira-nian-Canadian may have fled abroad and have issued a warrant for his arrest. The victim was 16; the suspected killer is 18. Police now say the homicide involved a low level drug deal gone bad.
According to Ottawa police, Yazdan Giasvand Ghiasi (an Iranian-Canadian, not Iranian-American as incorrectly reported last week) was a low-level marijuana dealer. While skipping school December 6, he received a call on his cell phone. Within five minutes of entering a parked car outside the his home, he was shot and his body dumped in the street.
Canadian officials say the murder of the 16-year-old did not seem planned, but that it resulted from a disagreement over a marijuana deal. The three Arabs charged last week in the case—Zakaria Dourhnou, 18, Khaled Wehbe, 19, and Abdulhamid Wehbe, 20—were regulars at the Wehbe residence where neighbors say drug deals could often be seen taking place.
Dourhnou came to Canada with his mother from Morocco. The origins of the Wehbes is not yet known, but the name is Arab and a Wehbe clan is a major family in Lebanon.
First reports indicated that Khaled and Zakaria tried to help Abdulhamid escape after he killed Yazdan December 6. But new evidence suggests Abdul-hamid was only the driver and that a fourth suspect, Mohamed Wehbe, 18, may have been Yazdan’s actual killer.
Mohamed Wehbe has now been charged, but he has disappeared and it is thought he may have fled abroad.
Mohamed also faces previous and unrelated charges of possession of crack cocaine for the purpose of drug trafficking, possession of the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking, and breaching release conditions.
Since the murder, Iran has denounced Canada’s judicial system and called the country unsafe for Iranians. An Iranian Embassy official even attended the Ghiasi’s funeral and made statements in Persian that were rather political, said surprised mourners.
In response to the Islamic Republic’s statements, Canadian nationals have been filling Ottawa newpapers with outraged comments. Some use sarcasm and cite the proposed stoning of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, but most argue Iran is being hypocritical by criticizing Canada when so many deaths in Iran are perpetrated by the government itself. Canada has been an outspoken critic of Iran over the last few years It annually sponsors the UN resolution critical of Iran’s human rights conduct.
According to Dale Boire’s letter to the Ottawa Citizen, which encompassed the comments of many other letters, “Iran’s posturing on the death of Yazdan Ghiasvand Ghiasi is most likely motivated by self-serving political considerations rather than with a genuine concern for the victim.” Iranian officials, said Narges Ghaffari, who hosts a weekly radio show for Iranians in Ottawa, “want to use this as a weapon to attack Canada.”
This “pure political game,” as Iranian-Canadian human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam calls it, “is quite insulting. Many Iranians have fled the country to come to Canada to live in this wonderful country with so much freedom and opportunity. And they’re trying to show their concern for this Iranian-Canadian all of a sudden. We don’t buy it. And we asked them to stay away.”
A spokesperson for the Ghiasi family said the family was confident in the abilities of the Canadian authorities to resolve the homicide of Yazdan and that they did not wish to get involved in any political battles.
More than 121,000 Iranians live in Canada, according to the latest figures from Statistics Canada.