Court hears bid to toss Ibrahim Ali’s first-degree murder verdict over delays

The lawyer for a man found guilty of killing a 13-year-old Burnaby girl is asking a judge to stay the jury’s verdict over unreasonable delays in getting the man to trial.

Ibrahim Ali was found guilty on Dec. 8, 2023. He was arrested on Sept. 7, 2018, nearly a year after the Burnaby girl was found dead in Central Park.

The child, whose identity is covered by a publication ban, had been reported missing hours prior to her body being discovered.

Ali had been in custody and charged with first-degree murder for more than 63 months, which his lawyer Kevin McCullough told a B.C. Supreme Court judge is more than double the allowable threshold set out by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Ali’s lawyer brought the so-called Jordan application in an attempt to stay the proceedings on the grounds it took too long for their client to get to trial, a limit Canada’s High Court has set at 30 months.

If granted, Ali would go free without sentencing.

Ali, who appeared by video wearing an orange sweat suit and medical gloves, was found guilty less than 24 hours after jurors’ deliberations began, and he now faces a mandatory life term with no chance of parole for 25 years.