From The Ottawa Citizen: H/T Grace

Wahab Dadshani in the custody of Ottawa police.

Photograph by: handout, The Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — Prosecutors seeking lengthy jail time for Midway killer Wahab Dadshani have produced a list of misdemeanors that the 31-year-old committed during his almost six years in jail.

A jury found Afghanistan-born Dadshani guilty of manslaughter last month in the September 2003 killing of Charbel Chaar at the Midway Family Fun Park, off St. Laurent Boulevard.

Chaar, who was badly beaten during the attack, died from blood loss after Dadshani attacked him with a sword.

There is a significant gulf between the 15-year sentence assistant Crown prosecutor Robert Wadden is seeking and the immediate released being sought by Dadshani’s lawyers. Now, what was scheduled as a two-day sentencing hearing, will last at least another day.

Wadden called Ottawa Regional Detention Centre security manager Jean-Marc Joly Tuesday to testify about Dadshani’s disciplinary record that dates back to Oct. 10, 2003, a month after he was arrested.

Joly listed about a dozen infractions that included refusing a strip search for religious reasons, spitting on a cell door, inciting other prisoners, smoking tobacco in his cell, refusing to leave a staff passageway after being asked three times to do so and using profanity while suggesting that another inmate should be forced to engage in a sexual act with “a 1,000 mules.”

He was also disciplined for possessing a newspaper story containing a photograph of the institution’s deputy superintendent Mark Grady — not a contravention of rules, said Joly, but an incident that made prison authorities concerned about Grady’s safety.

Dadshani has spent much of his incarceration at the Ottawa facility in “closed confinement” meaning he has been locked in a cell for more than 23 hours, with 20 minutes allowed for exercise.

During time “in the hole” prisoners have a metal bed without a mattress (until night time) and are allowed one book. They eat in their cell, segregated from other prisoners.

Under questioning from defence lawyer Mark Ertel, Joly said Dadshani had also periods in segregation because of construction at the jail.

Dadshani is currently in solitary although not for any specific offence, added Joly.

Ertel has told Justice Hugh McLean that any extra prison time for the manslaughter conviction would be excessive punishment.

Ertel said the 31-year-old should be given two-for-one credit for the almost six years he has already been in custody and be immediately released.

During the early part of Dadshani’s detention, conditions have sometimes been considered so bad at the Ottawa facility that judges were giving three-for-one credit for time served there — a fact Ertel has signalled he intends to raise during the hearing, which continues on Wednesday.
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