

Bryann Aguilar, CP24.com





Dozens gathered on Saturday to remember the international student killed in an alleged impaired driving crash in Scarborough in December.

Damir Kussain was one of the two Centennial College students who died after being hit by a vehicle at the intersection of Markham Road and Progress Avenue shortly before 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 22.

The 19-year-old was staying at the college over the holidays and had gone for a walk with brothers Wei Jie Zhu-Li and Jun Ju Zhu-Li to get food when the collision happened.

The driver allegedly lost control of his 2014 Mazda while heading east on Progress Avenue at a high rate of speed, police said.

Investigators allege he mounted the sidewalk, struck a guardrail, and then hit the students, who were on the south sidewalk.

Officers arrived to find Kussain and Wei Jie suffering from very serious injuries. They were subsequently transported to a hospital, where they later died.

Jun Ju was found with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

“He was studying himself, he wrote poems and songs in English, and performed himself,” Kussain’s mother, Gulzhan Bukharova, said through a translator.

She said her son came to Toronto from Kazakhstan as it was his childhood dream to study in Canada. Kussain was a first-year student in the automation and robotics technician program.

“I wanted it to be a mistake, I wanted it to be a wrong number. I didn’t know what to think about it,” said Bukharova.

Matthew Fleming, the director of housing residence life at Centennial Place, said he was a very compassionate and considerate individual who is loved by all.

“(He was) a very special human,” said Centennial College president Craig Stephenson in his eulogy. “All of which makes this loss all the more difficult for us, not just the Centennial community, but for the Greater Toronto community as a whole.”

A scholarship will be created in Kussain’s name and will be awarded to a robotics student with the highest grade point average.

A similar scholarship will be established in the memory of Wei Jei, who was laid to rest on New Year’s Eve.

The driver, Pickering resident Michael Johnson, is facing nine charges in connection with the deadly incident, including two counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing death.

-with files from CTV News Toronto’s Beth Macdonell