Murder charge withdrawn in 2020 westside shooting

By Delon Shurtz - Lethbridge Herald on February 14, 2023.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDdshurtz@lethbridgeherald.com

A second-degree murder charge against a former Toronto man who was accused in a shooting death in Lethbridge three years ago, has been withdrawn.

The charge against Mohamud Omar Dhiblawe was dismissed Monday in Lethbridge Court of King’s Bench after Crown Prosecutor Shane Morrison said the Crown did not intend to call any evidence at trial.

“There’s no real likelihood of conviction,” Morrison told Justice Johnna Kubik.

Dhiblawe’s charge stems from a shooting in Lethbridge Feb. 6, 2020. Just after 10:30 p.m. police responded to a report of a shooting at a residence in the 200 block of University Drive West. Officers found the body of a 35-year-old man inside the home, and he was transported to the Calgary medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.

Police said Dhiblawe and the victim knew each other, and following a verbal dispute over drugs, the man was shot.

The suspect fled before police arrived, but Dhiblawe was arrested the following month during an unrelated drug bust at a residence in Regina, Sask. Dhiblawe was temporarily brought back to Alberta shortly after he was arrested, but has since been remanded in Regina.

He is also charged in connection with a murder in Edmonton on Feb. 8, 2020. Mohamed Ahmed Makaran, 32, was shot and killed in an apartment suite on McConachie Boulevard.

The case was proceeding to trial, and during a brief hearing Jan. 9 court was told a pre-trial conference had been set for Jan. 30, and dates for a four-week trial were expected to be set when the matter returned to court Monday.

Dhiblawe, who was not required to appear in court, was scheduled to have a preliminary hearing last May, but on the day it was to begin his lawyer waived the hearing and consented to have Dhiblawe committed for trial.

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