A preliminary hearing is underway today for a 22-year-old man accused of stabbing his friend to death outside a Rathburn Rd. apartment complex last summer.
The purpose of the hearing is to determine whether the Crown Attorney’s Office has enough evidence against Brampton resident Tristan Landriault, to warrant a trial. The hearing is scheduled to last at least through the week. Evidence given during the proceedings is under a publication ban.
Landriault is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Farhan Omar of Mississauga.
Omar died Aug. 16 at a Toronto hospital after he was stabbed in a children’s playground beside his Erindale Terrace apartment building, in the area of Rathburn and Creditview Rds., after an argument with a friend.
Omar’s relatives say the murder victim had his problems with the law, but didn’t deserve to die.
Abdinoor Omar, 40, said his young brother, one of 16 siblings born in Somalia, had earned top marks in school after coming to Canada in 1995.
“But things went wrong in high school. He got involved with the wrong crowd.”
Omar said his brother never took drugs or got involved in gang activity.
But he drank alcohol, against Muslim law, which upset his family. He was charged with impaired driving last year, paid a fine and was to have had his licence reinstated next month.
“He had no enemies, whatsoever,” Omar said.
After Omar was stabbed that night, his older brother said, he went inside to change his bloody clothes. But, he collapsed before he could return to the fray.
Omar said his brother had been with a group of friends at about 5:30 p.m. that evening when an argument with a friend escalated into a full-blown fight.
He said one of Farhan’s friends went inside to get a knife that he plunged into Farhan’s back.
He said his brother’s accused killer was a regular visitor to their family home.
