Convicted killer launches expletive-laden rant at judge after sentencing

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This article was published 17/05/2023 (921 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man sentenced to life in prison for his leading role in a brutal, execution-style murder railed at a judge Monday after he tied him to the alleged rape of a trial witness.

“I just want to know why you keep bringing up the rape (of the witness) and saying I had my friends rape her?” Jesse Daher asked after King’s Bench Justice Ken Champagne sentenced him to life in prison with no chance of parole for 20 years in the October 2020 torture and slaying of 29-year-old Mohamed Mohiadin Ahmed.

“You guys didn’t even fact check it, you are just taking her word for it. I had nothing to do with it,” Daher said. “You are just making more f—-king problems for me by bringing that up…. F—k you, you know that’s f—king bullshit.”

Defence lawyer Mike Cook intervened and spoke quietly to Daher before telling court: “I said to Mr. Daher I think he has made his point and we can move on.”

“I think that is as good advice as you are going to get,” Champagne told Daher before closing court.

Daher, 30, was not accused of participating in the alleged sexual assault and no one was charged with the crime.

Daher and co-accused Evan Brightnose-Baker, 23, were both convicted of first-degree murder. Brightnose-Baker was sentenced Monday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 14 years.

Court heard Daher targeted Ahmed for death after labeling him a “skinner” and a “rat.”

“This was not a crime committed on impulse, rather it was a planned and targeted attack,” Champagne said. “This horrific crime continues to traumatize (Ahmed’s) family. What they have lived through and heard in the courtroom, no family should endure.”

Ahmed, his killers and many of the witnesses who testified at trial were all heavy methamphetamine users.

“The evidence demonstrates Winnipeg has a serious meth problem,” Champagne said.

Ahmed was killed at a drug “flophouse” on Royse Avenue. Colin Leiterman, who lived at the house, testified at trial Ahmed and two other people were present when masked men armed with a sawed-off shotgun and collapsible baton forced their way into the house and told him and the others to go to the bedrooms as the men took Ahmed to the bathroom and assaulted him.

Daher and Brightnose-Baker forced Ahmed into a bathtub and beat and tortured him as he begged for his life, Champagne said. An autopsy identified more than 40 blunt or sharp force injuries to his head and body.

“The assault was vicious and sustained,” Champagne said. It took time to inflict all those injuries. (Ahmed) was made to suffer.”

In a statement to police six months after the killing, Brightnose-Baker’s then-girlfriend said she and Brightnose-Baker were asleep the night of the killing when Daher awakened Brightnose-Baker, telling him: “Get ready, let’s go.”

When the two men returned to the house the next day, Brightnose-Baker had blood on his clothes and threw out his shoes, the woman said. Daher, the woman told police, said: “We killed him. We killed Mo.”

A second woman who was living in the same house as Daher in December 2020 testified he told her details of the killing, said it was his “destiny” to kill Ahmed and that he was “proud” of what he did.

The woman said when police arrested her on an unrelated drug matter on Dec. 28 and released her that same day, she was raped and beaten by four of Daher’s friends over the belief she had ratted on him.

Two weeks later the woman was attempting to flee the city when she stopped at a friend’s house and was met by Daher, who lunged at her and shot her in the face with a pellet gun.

“She could see the bathroom and the tub in the suite and immediately believed he was going to drag her into it and kill her,” Champagne sad. “She was fighting for her life.”

The woman managed to break free and, after being treated at hospital, provided a statement to police.

Daher and Brightnose-Baker are both Indigenous and had upbringings blighted by neglect, violence and substance abuse.

Brightnose-Baker lives with multiple mental deficits, including fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and persistent depressive disorder, his lawyer Laura Robinson previously told court.

Robinson described Brightnose-Baker as a “follower” and said he looked up to Daher like a brother.

Unlike Daher, Brightnose-Baker expressed remorse for the killing.

Daher poses the greater risk to the community and has continued to offend violently in custody, Champagne said.

In a Facebook message posted prior to his arrest, Daher said: “I don’t like being the bad guy — I love being the bad guy.”

“For him, the rule of law is defined by street justice, where might is right,” Champagne said. “The public is at serious risk with him in the community.”

Leiterman, who disposed of Ahmed’s body in the Red River a day after the killing, was initially charged with being an accessory to murder, but later pleaded guilty to interfering with human remains. He was sentenced in 2021 to 18 months in jail.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca