‘I don’t remember’: accused says rage left no memory of stabbing death

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This article was published 22/01/2021 (2072 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man on trial for a 2019 stabbing death outside a Winnipeg restaurant told court he was so consumed with rage, he has no memory of the slaying.

“Everything happened quick, I was very angry,” Mahfouth Assi testified earlier this week through an Arabic interpreter. “My mind was not functioning, I don’t remember.”

Yazan Al Horani, 20, was killed outside Ramallah Café and hookah lounge, April 15, 2019. Another man, Moussa Almousa, who prosecutors allege was Assi’s primary target, suffered two stab wounds to the chest and back, but survived.

Assi, 22, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and attempted murder — arguing he was provoked and should be convicted of the lesser offences of manslaughter and aggravated assault.

Court has heard testimony Assi and Almousa became embroiled in a heated exchange of culturally charged insults, after Assi took exception to Almousa standing on a café couch to take a selfie with his friends.

“I told him, ‘Please, can you get off the couch?’ and he got angry,” Assi said. “He came to me, gave me his phone, said, ‘F— off, take a picture of us.’”

Assi said he asked Almousa why he was acting that way, making him even angrier, at which point, he asked to see the café owner.

Assi said he guided Almousa to the cashier’s counter and told café owner Hamza Samir: “This guy is looking for trouble, he has to leave.”

Almousa got angry, shoved Assi, who shoved back before staff and Almousa’s friends separated the two men, court heard.

“He got very angry, he started insulting my mother,” Assi said. “When the guys separated us, he was out of my sight… but I heard him say, ‘I’ll stab you, I will shoot you, come outside if you are a man and you have balls.’”

Assi said they continued to trade insults, with Assi insulting Almousa’s mother, “but I stopped first.”

In earlier testimony, Almousa told court he and his friends had been standing outside the restaurant for two to three minutes, when Assi rounded the corner from the back and started stabbing him.

“I just fell down and my friend Yazan was trying to calm him down, saying, ‘Please, please, don’t do that.’ Then he stabbed Yazan as well and killed him,” Almousa said.

“When I saw that Yazan was fallen down and stabbed, I stood and went toward (Assi) and then he stabbed me (again).”

Al Horani and his family emigrated from Syria in 2017, after years spent in a refugee camp in Jordan, a family friend told the Free Press following his death. Al Horani was taking adult-education courses, had started a new job at Blady Middle Eastern grocery store, and was recently engaged to be married.

Assi told court he knew Al Horani through his (Assi’s) cousin, one of Blady’s owners.

“He was a very respectful man, friendly nice guy,” Assi said.

Assi told court he had no memory of picking up a knife or attacking the two men.

“The only feeling that I remember is that I was very mad, very angry,” he said. “Mostly what I remember is someone holding me, touching me, trying to push me away.”

Assi said the next thing he recalled was arriving in his car at a St. Norbert service station and finding a bloody knife on the passenger seat.

“There were bruises on my body, my right hand was swollen and my leg was hurting,” he said. “When I saw the knife I realized I made a mistake, I hurt someone… I knew something had happened.”

“Scared that people would come after (him) for revenge,” Assi drove on to Kenora, Ont., where he booked a hotel room. A few hours later, while checking social media, he learned Al Horani was dead, he said.

“I was surprised and I was sad,” Assi said. “I knew that he came with that group. I was trying to remember what happened and I couldn’t remember and got even more scared.”

After talking on the phone to his father, Assi said he got in his car, called police and was arrested on the highway just outside Kenora.

In earlier testimony, Assi, guided by defence lawyer Scott Newman, provided details of his upbringing in Ramallah, Palestine. At 12, he had to care for three younger siblings while his mother recovered from colon cancer.

As a teen, Assi said he was repeatedly tortured by Israeli special forces. “The country was in a war state and they wanted me to give information about my friends. I never co-operated with them, so my life was under threat.”

At 17, he arrived in Ohio, and lived with an uncle. Ten months later, fearing he would be deported, Assi walked across the border and arrived in Winnipeg, where he had more family, including one of the owners of the Ramallah Café.

The trial resumes Monday.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca