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We do not know what’s on those cellphones and we will not know, if ever, until trial

The mayor has denied the accusations and the National Post has never seen the alleged video.

Media lawyer Peter Jacobsen, who spent much of Friday arguing for access, said while there was no mention of Mayor Ford in the lightly redacted warrant documents, “we wouldn’t expect that either.”

“We do not know what’s on those cellphones and we will not know, if ever, until trial,” Mr. Jacobsen said, adding the court struck a “fair balance” between the fair-trial rights of the accused and rights of the public to understand the rationale for the police search.

“It doesn’t add any direct [clarity to the Ford questions], but as you know every piece of information is another building block to perhaps getting at the truth of what really happened,” Mr. Jacobsen said.

Mr. Smith was gunned down in March outside a nightclub on King Street West. Police allege Nisar Hashimi fired the fatal bullet, while Mr. Mohamed, whose cellphone was determined to be in the location of the slaying, contacted Hashimi 23 times that night.

Mr. Mohamed’s lawyer, Fariborz Davoudi, opposed the application to unseal the search warrants, saying the information could “taint” potential witnesses and the jury pool. He was successful in convincing a Superior Court judge to redact certain narrow pieces of information from the documents.

The case against Mr. Hashimi ended with a surprise guilty plea to manslaughter last month; first-degree murder charges against Mr. Mohamed are expected to be downgraded when he appears in court next week.

National Post

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