Mahdi Hassan Ali’s path to life in prison wound to a close on Monday as the families of the three men he gunned down in a botched convenience store robbery took quiet satisfaction in the fact he will never be free again.

“We got what we wanted. And he got what he deserved,” said Abdirazak Warfa, whose cousins Mohamed Warfa, 31, and Osman Elmi, 28, died in their Seward Market and Halal Meats store on Jan. 6, 2010, along with a customer, Anwar Mohammed, 31.

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill sentenced Ali to a life term for each of the killings. The teenager will be eligible for parole after 30 years for the slayings of Mohamed and Warfa, but must serve a mandatory sentence of life without parole for the premeditated slaying of Elmi.

“It isn’t their deaths that we can’t accept, but the brutal way in which they died,” said Nimo Abdi Warfa, 18, sister to Warfa and cousin to Elmi, in a statement to the court that invoked principles of justice from the Qur’an. “Our Lord will gather us together and will in the end decide the matter between us in truth and justice,” she quoted.

“Any individual who kills three innocent men in one minute should be able to handle the consequences they are presented with,” she said of the life sentences.

The sentencing marked the end of a lengthy saga that included a debate surrounding Ali’s age that went to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Cahill rejected motions by Ali’s attorney, Frederick Goetz, that challenged the constitutionality of sending a juvenile to prison for life without the possibility of release and requested a jury determine Ali’s age. Ali’s birth date indicates he was 17 at the time of the killings, but Goetz contends because of a lack of record keeping in his native Africa, Ali was 15 at the time of the slayings and should have been tried as a juvenile.

Goetz said afterward he wasn’t surprised by the denial of his motions but wanted to set them forward so he could file an appeal within 90 days. He acknowledged that although the likelihood of success for his client “is small,” he wanted to see that the debate was preserved for the appeals courts to review.

Ali’s accomplice, Ahmed Ali, 19, pleaded guilty shortly after the killings to three counts of attempted aggravated robbery and testified against Mahdi Ali. He will be sentenced to 18 years in prison.

‘Symbolic, pragmatic’

Cahill told Ali that he was imposing the life sentences consecutively for two reasons. The first was symbolic, for the deaths of the three men who, by all accounts, were loved by their families and important to their communities. The second, he said, was pragmatic — should the law someday be changed, consecutive sentences ensure he will never be considered for release.

“It may seem terrible to take away your liberty and any hope you have for release,” Cahill said. “But terrible or not, it is a just result.”

Ali, who showed no emotion, opted not to address the court or the victims’ families.

Afterward, the slain men’s friends and families clutched photos of the men: Mohammed Warfa posing with his wife and children, Anwar Mohammed with his arms around his own wife.

Though they’ll never stop grieving, the families can finally put Mahdi Ali behind them, Nimo Abdi Warfa said.

“The least of justice we can get today is to have this person behind bars.” she said. “We’ve got that. And we will miss our brothers and we will continue to remember them, and we will try to survive this. And we hope that no one else has to put up with anything like this.”

___

Star Tribune

Comments

comments