After being sentenced to prison for their roles in a violent feud that culminated in the murder of a 59-year-old St. Norbert man, Mohamad Alzreik and William Frame taunted and swore at the victim’s family as they were led out of a Winnipeg courtroom Friday.
Earlier in the day, Salah Falah Hasan’s children provided victim impact statements to court in which they damned the killers as “pure evil.”
“I used to think that evil only existed in movies,” said Hasan’s daughter, Zahraa Hasan. “Evil sits in this courtroom today… Evil is gloating and laughing and posting memes on the Internet after you have murdered someone’s father. Evil is you sitting there, Mohamad, and still smiling at me.”
Police responded to the 200 block of Houde Drive in July 2022 where they found Salah Falah Hasan suffering from a gunshot wound.
Salah Hasan, 59, died after he was shot in his home on the 200 block of Houde Drive, on July 3, 2022.
Alzreik, 29, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Frame, 44, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a life sentence with no opportunity for parole for 14 years.
A third accused, David Grant Wall, 40, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and will be sentenced at a later date to six years in prison.
The killing marked the end of a feud between one-time friends Hasan and Alzreik that had been simmering since September 2021, and escalated in the weeks prior to the shooting when the men became involved with each other’s ex-girlfriends.
“Dating your enemy’s ex-girlfriend should not have been the tipping factor that resulted in a man being executed in his underwear in the middle of the night,” Crown attorney Ari Millo said. “But in this case, it was.”
Court heard the three killers drove to St. Norbert in a Hyundai Santa Fe, with Wall at the wheel, around 3 a.m. They were armed with two handguns.
The killers circled the house five times before Frame and one of the other men, each armed with a handgun, got out of the vehicle, and forced their way through the front door. The gunmen immediately opened fire on Hasan, who collapsed at the threshold of the door.
Hasan was shot three times, including once in the heart.
Sentences for the three men were jointly recommended by the Crown and defence in what court was told was a “true plea bargain.”
Frame admitted to being one of the shooters, but proving the identity of the second shooter, who the Crown alleged was Alzreik, was far from certain, with the only evidence being grainy security video, Millo said.
As well, there was no evidence linking Frame and Wall to the feud between Alzreik and Hasan, Millo said. While the Crown is not required to establish a motive, it might have proved a sticking point with jurors had the case gone to trial.
“All three co-accused are being held responsible and there is a measure of justice in that, even if it is not the result we hoped for,” Millo said. “It is a true plea bargain, in every respect.”
Hasan and his family fled Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991 and “with little more than the clothes on his back” took refuge in Syria, where he scraped a living by selling cigarettes on the street and his wife operated a falafel cart, Millo said.
Hasan moved to Canada in 2001, eventually settling in Winnipeg, where he became a “cherished neighbour” known for helping anyone who needed it, including Alzreik, who spent time sleeping on Hasan’s couch, and was provided a job with Hasan’s family “when he most needed it,” Millo said.
“The same person we used to eat with, he’s the same person we helped numerous times, the same person my family employed when he couldn’t find work,” Sahraa Hasan said. “My family and I have never experienced such betrayal.”
King’s Bench Justice Herbert Rempel said he was “shocked” by the case, “not by the how and why, but the where,” a quiet neighborhood of “well-kept houses… where you are more likely to see people walking their dog than men with guns.”
Rempel endorsed the jointly recommended sentences, noting that without plea bargains, the justice system “would grind to a halt.”
“Sometimes the Crown has to take a cold hard look at the evidence before going to trial,” he said.
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.