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A participant in one of the most horrific murders in Canadian history got a break from the Parole Board of Canada on Friday.
But not much of one.
A panel agreed Hamed Shafia should be allowed an escorted absence from the medium-security prison where he is serving a life sentence.
His Hail Mary looking for an escorted visit to a mosque was torpedoed.
Murder in the family
Shafia and his evil parents were convicted in January 2012 of four counts of first-degree murder in the horrific deaths of his three teenage sisters and his father’s first wife in a polygamous marriage. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
The Shafia family murdered the women in the most reprehensible fashion imaginable that highlighted the horrors of honour killings.
In June 2009, authorities found the bodies of Hamed’s sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with 52-year-old Rona Amir Mohammad in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal in Kingston.
The judge at the murder trial lambasted the Shafia family and said the murders were driven by the clan’s “twisted concept of honour.” The family immigrated to Canada from Afghanistan and settled in Montreal.
While the father became a successful businessman, the Shafia’s struggled to leave the 15th century behind.
Cops knew quickly it was murder
Panel member Mike Bossio noted that while Shafia has made much progress and gaining some insight into his evil actions, he still needs to do more work. Any reentry into society should be gradual, he said.
In 2024, on the 15th anniversary of the murders, Kingston Police major case manager Chris Scott told Postmedia he hadn’t forgotten what he saw that awful day.
“All police officers are passionate about justice and passionate about victims, but, I think, even more so after that case, because of those women … I can see them now,” Scott said.
“You’re used to the male gender being violent, doing despicable things and domestic violence, but when you throw in a mother, a spouse, a son, that’s just not something anyone’s psyche gets their head around. It was hard for everybody on the team to see the son and the second wife, the mother, being involved in that.”
He added that after the Nissan Sentra containing the victims was located, the deaths were not a matter of misadventure. And it was the murderous surviving family members who tipped their hand.
Botched the executions
Mohammad Shafia, Hamed Shafia and Tooba Mohammad Yahya reported their loved ones missing to Kingston Police. The family were on their way home from a trip to Niagara Falls.
Matriarch Yahya said she was too tired to drive on to Montreal early on June 30 and they stayed overnight in Kingston. But instead of driving into downtown Kingston Yahya drove the Nissan to Kingston Mills Locks.
Meanwhile, father and son booked two rooms at a motel on Hwy. 15. And when they reunited?
The four victims were murdered and arranged just so in the Nissan which was put into first gear and pushed into the lock and the awaiting watery grave. But the plan went awry and they had to use their Lexus to get the job done, damaging a headlight and leaving evidence at the scene.
Hamed drove back to Montreal and staged a small collision as an alibi for the smashed headlight. He then hid the car.
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The family has never said how the four women were murdered but a pathologist said the quartet drowned.
On Jan. 29, 2012, Mohammad, Hamed and Yahya were all convicted by a jury of their peers of four counts of first-degree murder. They were automatically sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
After his conviction, the younger Shafia argued that he was too young to be tried as an adult in the case, but Ontario’s top court rejected his appeal. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear the case in 2017.
bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun