KINGSTON, On.,-The jury in the Shafia murder trial has been instructed to consider a second degree murder charge, Global News has learned. With the new option, the jury in Kingston will now consider three charges for each of the accused: first degree murder, second degree murder and a not guilty verdict.
Global News has also learned that the judge instructed the jury that the guilty verdict has to be beyond a reasonable doubt. The judge also asked the jury to ignore all media attention. He said the jury is the "sole judges of the facts".
Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, have each pleaded not guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of three Shafia daughters and Shafia's first wife in a polygamous marriage. The bodies of the four were found June 30, 2009, in a car at the bottom of a canal in Kingston, where the Montreal family had stopped on their way back from a trip to Niagara Falls, Ont.
The Crown alleges it was a premeditated murder over family honour, staged to look like an accident after it was carried out. But the defence lawyers told the jury in their closing addresses the evidence does indeed fit with the deaths being an accident. The judge told the jury that just because all accused are charged with the same offences and are all being tried together, doesn't mean they have to make the same decision for everybody.
© The Canadian Press, 2012