Police have charged an 18-year-old Ottawa man with first-degree murder in the January stabbing death of another man at a downtown nightclub.

Navid Niran, 24, was stabbed to death outside a downtown Ottawa nightclub in the early morning of Jan. 22, 2012. (Facebook)

Navid Niran, 24, was leaving Studio Nightclub in the early morning of Jan. 22 with a group of friends after the bar closed when he was stabbed in the stomach several times.

He died outside the Dalhousie Street nightclub before paramedics could load him into the ambulance. It was Ottawa's first homicide of 2012.

Ahmed Hafizi will appear in court today.

Niran's family had told CBC News he got into a shouting match with someone inside the bar a half hour before he was stabbed. Police viewed surveillance video and had many witnesses, though many had been drinking at the time of the stabbing.

Niran, the single father to a nine-month-old son, came to Ottawa from Afghanistan about eight years ago.