Revenge drove 2019 killing: Crown

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This article was published 25/10/2021 (1794 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The execution-style slaying of 20-year-old Rig Moulebou was driven by the most “understandable” of motives — revenge — a jury has heard.

Javaid Wahabi, Abdullahi Mohamed and Munachehr Haroon are on trial, charged with first-degree murder in the Nov. 4, 2019, attack in Winnipeg.

“This case is about revenge,” Crown attorney Chris Vanderhooft told jurors in an opening address Monday. “The killing of Rig Moulebou occurred because of that very understandable response: to hurt someone in return for being hurt by that person.”

Two days before he was killed, Moulebou fatally shot 23-year-old Jamshaid Wahabi — Javaid Wahabi’s brother — inside Citizen Nightclub, Vanderhooft told jurors. While Moulebou died before he could be charged, both the prosecution and defence accept as fact Moulebou was the killer.

Javaid Wahabi and others immediately began searching for Moulebou and found him two days later staying at an online residential rental property on Tim Sale Drive, Vanderhooft alleged.

The three accused “then plotted and carried out their vengeance quickly and efficiently,” Vanderhooft said.

“Their actions are entirely understandable — and also criminal. They took matters into their own hands and became judge, jury and executioner,” he said.

Prosecutors allege Wahabi orchestrated the killing, while Mohamed and Haroon carried it out, forcing their way into the rental residence and shooting Moulebou at close range as he slept.

“(Moulebou) probably never even knew they were there,” the Crown lawyer said.

Jurors are expected to hear evidence from a woman who left the residence just as the two accused shooters forced their way inside.

The woman was waiting for a friend to pick her up when one-time accused Arnold Nduta arrived at the door and two masked men pushed their way inside, Vanderhooft said. Nduta took the woman to a waiting car as she heard gunfire inside the residence.

Nduta was originally charged with murder but the charge was stayed after he was granted immunity in return for his testimony, Vanderhooft told jurors.

Evidence against the three accused will also include intercepted cellphone conversations and cell tower transmissions showing their locations at the time of the killing, Vanderhooft said.

The trial is set for 3 1/2 weeks.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca