Court and Parties

Court: COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO Date: 2021-06-03 Docket: C68524

Before: Simmons, Gillese and Huscroft JJ.A.

Between: Her Majesty the Queen, Respondent And: Mohammed Hakimzadah, Appellant

Counsel: Craig Zeeh, for the appellant Hannah Freeman, for the respondent

Heard and released orally: May 27, 2021 by video conference

On appeal from: the sentence imposed on April 27, 2020 by Justice Robert F. Goldstein of the Superior Court of Justice, sitting without a jury.

Reasons for Decision

[1] The appellant was convicted of five counts of counselling the commission of an offence that was not committed; one count of counselling the murder of his wife; one count of counselling the transfer of a firearm; one count of counselling trafficking in cocaine; one count of counselling commission of public mischief; and one count of counselling the murder of his wife’s family law lawyer.

[2] The appellant was sentenced to a total of nine years’ imprisonment less six years’ credit for pre-sentence custody, leaving a remaining sentence of three years’ imprisonment. He seeks leave to appeal sentence.

[3] We reject the appellant’s submission that the sentencing judge failed to sufficiently alert counsel of his intention to consider imposing a longer sentence than the seven-and-a-half-year sentence proposed by the Crown or that he failed to adequately explain his reasons for imposing a nine-year sentence.

[4] The sentencing judge alerted counsel that he was considering imposing a sentence higher than that sought by the Crown. In doing so, the sentencing judge indicated his concern that this was not simply a case of counselling murder in a domestic context. Rather, it was a case in which the appellant also wanted his wife’s lawyer to be murdered on University Avenue in front of the courthouse. In our view, that was sufficient notice that the sentencing judge considered both the range and the specific sentence proposed inadequate.

[5] As for his explanation for exceeding the sentence suggested, the sentencing judge explicitly rejected any suggestion by counsel that the appellant had abandoned his plans to arrange that two murders be committed.

[6] Moreover, the sentencing judge concluded, correctly in our view, that the range identified by counsel did not account for the significantly aggravating feature of counselling not only the murder of his wife but also the murder of his wife’s counsel.

[7] We also reject the appellant’s submission that the sentence imposed was demonstrably unfit, being outside a well-established three-to-eight-year range of sentences for counselling murder in the domestic context, or that it failed to account for the fact that the appellant was a first offender.

[8] As we have said, these offences put multiple persons at risk, including a justice system participant. They were egregious offences that merited the sentence imposed.

[9] Leave to appeal sentence is granted but the sentence appeal dismissed.

“Janet Simmons J.A.”

“E.E. Gillese J.A.”

“Grant Huscroft J.A.”