Four men found guilty in Airbnb murder

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This article was published 26/11/2019 (2307 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A jury has convicted four men of murder in the beating and strangling death of Mustafa Peyawary inside a Winnipeg apartment. 

Peyawary’s family members reacted with loud shouts of “Yes” as the jury foreman delivered the verdict late Tuesday night. 

Matthew Marjanovic, 32, was convicted of second-degree murder while Ahamed Ismail, 32, Aram Soroush, 27, and Damir Kulic, 29, were all convicted of first-degree murder in connection to the Aug. 13, 2017 killing. 

Members of Peyawary’s family, who requested not to be identified by name, provided impassioned victim impact statements shortly after the verdict.

“You will die a murderer,” one woman repeated as she pointed at each accused. “Society will not notice your absence… May you remain haunted by your actions that night and may you never find peace. May the wrath of god be upon you.”

The automatic sentence for first-degree murder is life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. 

The minimum sentence for second-degree murder is life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 years. Marjanovic will return to court for sentencing on Thursday. 

Jurors received their final instructions from Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin before beginning their deliberations early Tuesday afternoon.

“These four sets of hands either wielded weapons, bound wrists and ankles… and viciously beat Mustafa Peyawary to death and they assisted the others in doing so,” Crown attorney Monique Cam told jurors in a closing address last Thursday. 

Jurors heard security video captured Ismail, Soroush and Kulic together at a Mr. Lube station in Calgary before driving to Winnipeg where they met up with Marjanovic a day before the killing.

The next day, Soroush rented a Killarney Avenue apartment for one night through Airbnb, which Ismail paid for with his credit card. Later that afternoon, all four accused visited a Home Depot on Kenaston Boulevard, where they purchased garbage bags, rubber gloves, a mop and bucket, a large rubber tote, and Pine Sol cleaner.

Cam said the four accused bought the supplies “thinking ahead to what came after (the killing) – the clean-up and disposal of Mustafa Peyawary.”

Later that night, someone let Peyawary in to the apartment building and the third-floor suite where his killers bound his wrists and ankles with zip ties before beating him about the head and body with batons and shocking him with electric batons.

A short time later, a neighbour, alarmed by the screaming coming from the apartment, called police. Arriving officers arrested Kulic walking out of a hallway closet. Five hours later, an identification unit officer arrested Ismail hiding in a bedroom closet.

“The only detail these four minds didn’t forecast was how loudly Mustafa Peyawary could scream, leading to the unravelling of this crime,” Cam said.

Kulic’s lawyer argued he was in the washroom at the time of the killing, had never met Peyawary and knew nothing about his presence at the apartment. Ismail testified he had left the apartment for nearly two hours and returned to find Peyawary dead on the living room floor, just minutes before police banged on the door. Fearing he would be blamed, he panicked and hid in the closet, he testified.

Both Kulic and Ismail were found with blood on their clothing. A rubber glove with Kulic’s DNA on it was found in a garbage can.

Ismail, who testified he had driven to Winnipeg with Kulic and Soroush to expand his illegal marijuana business, claimed he only knew Peyawary by name and had only learned of a planned meeting with him the day he was killed. But jurors heard Ismail had Peyawary’s home address stored on his cellphone.

Marjanovic wasn’t arrested for the killing until January 2018 in Winnipeg; Soroush was arrested that same month in Vancouver.

Marjanovic’s DNA was found on a rubber glove found at the murder scene and jewelry found in Ismail’s pocket at the time of his arrest was identified as belonging to him. In a text two weeks before his arrest, Marjanovic said. “As long as they can’t put me there, I’ll walk probably.”

In addition to renting the apartment, other evidence connecting Soroush to the killing included his fingerprints on a package of gloves found at the apartment and the fact his car was found abandoned in River Heights 10 days after the killing.

“You may ask yourself why would Mr. Soroush want to dissociate himself with a vehicle he used to travel out of province to Winnipeg, a vehicle he used to drive to Home Depot, a vehicle he used to drive (to the murder scene)?” Cam said.

“Because he knew exactly what happened inside (the apartment), because he planned and prepared for what went on in there,” she said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca