Months after he was spared from deportation on humanitarian grounds, Yohanna David Chol lured a man into a dark stretch of Clarence Street and fired seven bullets into his back.
Months after he was spared from deportation on humanitarian grounds, Yohanna David Chol lured a man into a dark stretch of Clarence Street and fired seven bullets into his back in what prosecutors described as an “execution-style” killing.
A jury deliberated for one day on Tuesday before finding Chol, 38, guilty of the second-degree murder of 36-year-old Vuyo Kashe on July 15, 2022.
No motive was ever revealed for the murder at Chol’s trial, which commenced on Sept. 3 and heard closing arguments on Monday from the Crown and from Chol’s defence lawyers, Joe Addelman and Ariya Sheivari. Chol did not testify in his own defence.
“There was very likely some explanation, but we just don’t know what precipitated this murder,” said Assistant Crown attorney D’Arcy Wilson.
“We can’t prove the ‘why.’ We aren’t able to, but we aren’t required to,” Wilson told the jury. “We are able to prove the what, the who, the where, when and how.”
According to the prosecution, Chol was hanging out with Kashe and another man on the steps of a church at the corner of King Edward Avenue and Clarence Street on the night of the murder.
Chol briefly left and was seen pacing on Clarence Street, then crossing King Edward to Murray Street before he returned 20 minutes later to the church steps. The Crown played surveillance video showing Chol beckoning to Kashe and the man is seen casually following him across the street.
“The shooting conveniently happened in a blind spot” on Clarence Street, away from the camera’s view, Wilson said, though the video captured the sound of a gunshot followed in rapid succession by six more.
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“Mr. Chol chose to arm himself with a nine-millimetre handgun and lured Mr. Kashe down a dark, lonely street,” Wilson said. “He chose to aim and fire. He listened to Mr. Kashe cry out, then he fired six more times, execution-style, in the back.”
The Crown called numerous witnesses who saw Chol in the moments before the shooting, then saw him fleeing the scene as he wove through Lowertown streets before arriving at a housing complex on Murray Street “to lay low and stay hidden and avoid the busy streets.”
He ditched the handgun along the way by tossing it over the fence at an Ottawa Community Housing complex on York Street, then tossed his distinctive red “Canada” hat and the white shirt he was wearing “to get rid of the most incriminating evidence,” Wilson said.
The gun was recovered by police with one bullet still in the chamber. The weapon and clothing were sent for forensic testing and Chol’s DNA was found on all three items.
In order to preserve Chol’s right to a fair trial, the jury was unaware of his lengthy criminal history, and jurors didn’t know Chol had been deemed a danger to the public who was scheduled to be deported to South Sudan in December 2021.
According to his federal court records, Chol was born in Sudan in 1986 and came to Canada in 2003 as a refugee.
His time in Canada was marked by violence and criminal convictions for an array of offences, including assault, drug trafficking and obstructing a peace officer.
Chol also suffered from poor mental health and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, anxiety and depression, and was prescribed 11 medications, according to court records.
Chol was stripped of his status as a permanent resident and his numerous criminal convictions rendered him inadmissible to Canada, and led the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration to deem Chol a danger to the Canadian public.
The ministry ordered his removal to South Sudan, but Chol fought the decision in 2017.
His immigration lawyer argued Chol’s removal should be reconsidered because mental-health care was inaccessible in South Sudan and he would be at risk if he was forced to return. The case languished for years and Chol’s mental-health condition deteriorated.
Chol was ordered to be deported to South Sudan on Dec. 13 , 2021, but, two days before his scheduled removal, a federal court judge ruled that doing so would have put him at risk of death or inhumane treatment.
Justice Sébastien Grammond granted him a stay, allowing Chol to remain in Canada and have his case analyzed.
Grammond agreed with arguments put forward by Chol’s lawyer, Ayesha Kumararatne, and ruled the removal officer who had looked at Chol’s case failed to consider new evidence concerning his mental health.
“In light of the evidence reviewed above,” Grammond wrote in his Dec. 11, 2021 decision, “I have no difficulty finding that Mr. Chol’s removal to South Sudan would expose him to irreparable harm.”
Chol’s mental health was not a factor in his murder trial.
Prosecutors said Chol had “full control over every decision he made that night. … Each trigger pull was a distinct choice.”
The seven shots to Kashe’s torso were fired with “obvious intent to kill,” Wilson said, and the “multitude and excessiveness of those shots were meant to ensure fatal damage.”
Chol’s defence lawyers questioned the credibility of the eyewitnesses and argued the Crown had failed to meet their burden of proof to reach a conviction for murder.
Addelman told the jury the identification of Chol as the shooter was “tainted” by testimony from an unreliable witness.
The witness was with Chol and Kashe on the church steps in the moments before the shooting and later testified in court, pointing out Chol in the prisoner’s box.
According to Addelman, however, the eyewitness missed key details, such as the inverted cross tattooed prominently in the middle of Chol’s forehead.
The witness didn’t mention the tattoo when he described the shooter to police five days after the killing, didn’t mention it during the preliminary inquiry last year and only mentioned the tattoo for the first time the day before his testimony.
“Reasonable doubt is everywhere you look in this case,” Addelman said Monday.
The jury disagreed as they reached their verdict Tuesday afternoon.
