MANDEL: Don’t throw away key for young black killer of TSN producer, lawyer says

Jonny Gayle-West was a man with big dreams and a big heart — until the aspiring TSN sportscaster was shot to death by two strangers while on his way home from a meeting with his pastor almost exactly four years ago.

To this day, it’s not clear if it was a carjacking or a robbery that went wrong; his family believes their kind-hearted Jonny offered the teens a lift on that frigid evening before a deadly struggle left the 29-year-old producer dead and the two 18-year-olds running from his crashed Honda Civic. 

In April, a jury convicted Salman Ahmed and Samir Adem of second-degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence. The only outstanding issue is how long they must serve before being eligible for parole.

For Adem, that became a moot point after he died in prison in August. For Ahmed, now 22, the Crown is seeking 25 years before the possibility of parole — akin to a conviction for first-degree murder — while the defence urged Justice Kelly Byrne to allow him to apply after 12 years.

Defence lawyer Ariel Herscovitch said Byrne should take into account that Ahmed, who was in an electrical engineering program at Humber College, had a difficult upbringing as a young black man in the high crime Dixon neighbourhood.

“He was confronted with a routine police presence, and occasionally detained and handcuffed without charges. He witnessed horrific violence, death, gunfire, and the loss of close friends to that violence at a young age,” he wrote in his factum.

“It is to Mr. Ahmed’s great credit that despite those challenges, he managed to live a law-abiding and productive life until the time he committed this terrible offence.”

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But what a terrible offence it was.

In victim impact statements earlier this week, Gayle-West was described as charismatic and charming, “a beacon of light and a leader of men” who was close to earning an anchor chair on TSN.

“My precious son was shot in cold blood in his car and left to die alone on the street,” said his mother, Grace. “This is the most shameful way for a human being to die.”

His big brother, Justin Gayle, is haunted by his senseless death. “To think about him sitting in the car I gave him, alone in his own blood and the darkness closing in,” he wrote. “I let my mind wander. I think about how confused he must have been.”

But this was a day to talk about Ahmed — a youthful first offender with great potential for rehabilitation, according to his lawyer, with a ream of letters from his family and Somali community attesting to his innate goodness.

That argument suffered a setback when his witnesses were grilled by the Crown on how much they really knew about the killer they were supporting.

A friend of his mother’s described Ahmed as a good boy who told her he was active in their neighbourhood and seemed attentive to his autistic brother.

Then prosecutors played her a cellphone video of Ahmed partying to a rap song, while brandishing a gun.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she kept repeating in obvious distress. “That’s something I don’t know, and I never expected.”

Herscovich objected to the video, telling the court the “law-abiding” Ahmed was acquitted of gun possession after the judge found the Crown couldn’t prove when it was recorded.

His next witness, Aiden Addow, said Ahmed volunteered about twice a month with the Horn of Africa Community Development, a non-profit which offered after school programs for at-risk youth.

“He is always smiling, helpful, always trying to help the kids,” he testified.

In his letter, Addow concluded that Ahmed is a “virtuous individual who has made a positive impact on his community.”

Asked if he knew why Ahmed was in jail, he said he’d heard it was for a “murder something.”

Crown Michael Townsend then played the same gun-toting party video, which prosecutors contend was shot shortly after the murder. “Is that a virtuous person?” he asked.

Addow demurred, saying this wasn’t the young man he knew. “But this is usually teenager’s behaviour,” he said. “You can’t judge them.”

Ahmed’s sentencing hearing continues in January.

mmandel@postmedia.com