TOP COURT REJECTS APPEAL LINKED TO AJAX BANK ROBBERY

Ontario's appeals court has upheld the conviction of a man found guilty of an armed robbery at an Ajax bank, and the lengthy prison term he received for his crimes.

A Durham Region judge was right to dismiss a motion by Jabourou Abdoulkader to exclude evidence collected by Durham police as they investigated the robbery, and to accept as a fact that robbery victims had been menaced with a real gun, according to the ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Abdoulkader, of Brampton, was arrested in November of 2017 and charged with the robbery of a TD bank branch at Westney and Kingston roads. He was also charged with an attempted robbery at a bank in Mississauga prior to the Ajax incident.

nd During the Ajax robbery on Oct. 20, 2017, a masked man armed with a gun accosted bank employees as they prepared to open for the day, herding them into a vault and then ordering them to open a safe. During the robbery, the suspect "racked" the handgun he carried, according to evidence. The suspect fled with cash.

Abdoulkader was convicted of all charges he faced — they included robbery with a restricted or prohibited firearm and forcible confinement — and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Abdoulkader's appeal was based on two assertions: that evidence seized by Durham police when they executed a search warrant should have been excluded

at trial, and that trial Judge Jocelyn Speyer erred in concluding the gun used in the robbery was real.

During his trial in Oshawa, Abdoulkader's defence lawyer urged Speyer to exclude evidence — including a cellphone and more than $222,500 in cash — seized by Durham police when they searched the suspect's house and car, on the grounds the warrant was invalid. The defence argued police filed inaccurate information in applying for the warrant, mistakenly indicating that Abdoulkader had been convicted of robberies similar to the one in Ajax.

Abdoulkader, in fact, was acquitted of a bank robbery mentioned in the ITO, but was at the time on parole for an attempted robbery of an armoured car.

Speyer concluded that police had formed reasonable grounds to conclude evidence linked to the incidents in Ajax and Mississauga would be uncovered

during the searches. In spite of the factual error, the warrant was deemed valid.

The Appeal Court similarly rejected the motion to dismiss evidence, along with a submission by Abdoulkader's lawyers that Speyer erred in concluding a real firearm was used during the robberies. The defence submitted there was no evidence to prove the gun used during the robbery wasn't a replica.

"The trial judge's finding that the gun was real was amply supported by the record," the ruling says. "The video surveillance showed the robber pointing the gun at the bank employees in an obviously threatening way."