VICTORIA –
A lawyer for Ibrahim Ali in his first-degree murder trial says police told him a person close to the proceeding brought a handgun into the Vancouver courtroom on Friday with “intent to kill.”
Kevin McCullough says police told him the Glock firearm was loaded.
The lawyer says he and his wife were called to the Victoria police department on Sunday, where officers informed them of the incident.
The trial concluded Friday after a B.C. Supreme Court jury convicted Ali of killing the 13-year-old girl in a Burnaby, B.C., park in 2017.
Neither Victoria police nor Vancouver police immediately responded to questions about the alleged incident in the B.C. Supreme Court.
A spokesman for the BC Prosecution Service declined to comment.
McCullough had asked for Friday’s proceedings to be moved to a secure courtroom in light of what he said was a “litany of death threats.”
But Justice Lance Bernard said he didn’t know if one was available and the move didn’t take place.
The girl’s name cannot be reported because of a publication ban.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 11, 2023.