Three men charged in a fatal shooting in Saskatoon more than 10 years ago were all part of a conspiracy to commit murder, prosecutors allege.
The Crown, wrapping up closing arguments Wednesday in the first-degree murder trial of Kenneth Tingle, Jonathan Dombowsky and Long Nam Luu, painted a very specific picture of the 2004 killing of Isho Hana.
Hana was gunned down in what police describe as a drug turf war in Saskatoon.
Prosecutors argued the three accused, alongside a fourth man named Neil Yakimchuk, conspired to kill Hana because he was posing a threat to Dombowsky’s and Luu’s drug business.
Dombowsky hired Yakimchuk to carry out the shooting, Yakimchuk brought his friend Tingle to help, and Luu agreed to pay them for the job, according to the Crown.
Both Tingle’s and Yakimchuk’s guns jammed during the incident, and Hana took off. He was chased by both men before Yakimchuk eventually shot Hana in the back on Preston Avenue, prosecutors stated.
Yakimchuk, who was found guilty of shooting Hana but successfully appealed his conviction, was called as a Crown witness in the trial. He refused to testify, but statements he made to an undercover police officer about his involvement in the murder, and which implicated the three accused, were admitted as evidence.
All three defence laywers argued throughout their closing remarks Monday and Tuesday that Yakimchuk’s statements are not reliable. They pointed to inconsistencies between Yakimchuk’s statements and what he said under oath during a preliminary hearing, and even went as far as to call him a liar.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, maintained Yakimchuk told the truth while speaking to undercover officers.
He made the statements spontaneously to undercover officers who were investigating Yakimchuk in a different murder in Calgary. He had no reason to fabricate a story and the statements were corroborated by other Crown witnesses, prosecutors argued.
A judge is expected to hand down a verdict in the case on June 21.
Yakimchuk is still awaiting a new trial.
