Article content continued

Mohamed and Borozan were acquitted of all charges by a jury in early November.

But Elenezi, just 18 when he committed his crime, “was trying to be somebody he was not,” his defence lawyer Ewan Lyttle argued. Going along with the criminal way “made life easier in a tough neighbourhood,” and now Elenezi is “paying for it with years of his life,” Lyttle said. Lyttle had asked that Elenezi get just six months more on his sentence.

He would have never agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter if he knew it meant he would have to testify and risk retribution he added.

Lyttle said the dynamics at play were “crystal clear” — Elenezi was called as a Crown witness to testify against men accused of killing a man for doing the same thing.

Prosecutors had argued that one of the reasons the group targeted Najdi is that he had agreed to be a witness in an unrelated homicide case. He was killed before ever testifying.

It would be “inappropriate” to use the outcome of the murder trial to determine Elenezi’s sentence for contempt, Lyttle said. The court can never know how much weight the jury placed on his refusal to testify.

But prosecutor Julien Lalande argued that Elenezi’s contempt “impacted the jury’s ability to try (Mohamed and Borozan).”

Elenezi could have affirmed that Mohamed and Borozan both had loaded guns at the scene of the killing. He knew they were there, Lalande said.

“That’s evidence the jury never got to hear.”

The double acquittals in early November stunned a packed courtroom.