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Montreal cop union seeks to quash inquest
MONTREAL — Almost two years after a Quebec coroner launched an inquiry into the death of a Muslim man slain by Montreal police, it has yet to call a witness or see a shred of evidence.
And it may never do so as Montreal's police union heads to court on Tuesday to try to avoid having another one of its officers grilled in public for having shot the Moroccan-born man.
Mohamed Anas Bennis was killed by two gunshots in 2005 as police carried out a search warrant at a neighbouring apartment.
The 25-year-old man was on his way home from morning prayers, and was not the target of the initial police investigation.
His family has never been satisfied with the police's official explanation: that Bennis lunged at an officer with a kitchen knife.
"There are so many questions that still have to be answered," said Bennis' sister, Najlaa.
Among the questions the family wants answered: Why was the knife never processed by forensics? And why has video of the scene never been released?
Najlaa says whatever hope was raised by the decision to hold an inquiry is now being sorely tested.
"Holding the inquiry is the minimum for respect and democracy," she said. "The delays add to the pain of having lost my brother."
The delays can be explained by a court motion filed by the Montreal Police Brotherhood shortly after Quebec's chief coroner announced the inquiry in 2008.
It claims the inquiry amounts to "procedural harassment," citing several reports that have cleared the two officers involved in the shooting of any wrongdoing.
The two key reports -- the initial investigation conducted by Quebec City police and the Crown prosecutor's recommendation that no charges be filed -- had never been released publicly despite pleas by the family.
Then the brotherhood suddenly tabled them during hearings last year on its motion, which prompted howls of protest from the family's lawyer.
"Why did the brotherhood have access to them?" said family lawyer Alain Arsenault.
"They should never have had access to those documents. They were obtained through inappropriate means."
Tuesday's hearings in Quebec Superior Court will deal partly with the admissibility of the documents and, more broadly, with the question of whether the inquiry can go ahead.
"The hearings are aimed at cancelling a public coroner's inquiry that is useless," said Martin Desrochers, a spokesman for the brotherhood.
Montreal police are already facing scrutiny after the shooting death of 22-year-old Fredy Villanueva in August 2008.
That shooting did prompt a public inquiry, after a riot in the city's north end prompted international news headlines.
The Villanueva inquiry has heard that police officers involved in the case failed to follow the same rules themselves that they would have applied in other shootings -- like keeping the participants separate so that they couldn't collaborate on a story.
Last week the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled against the brotherhood's attempts to quash another inquiry into a death at the hands of police, of Michel Berniquez in 2003.
That decision has heartened supporters of the Bennis inquiry.
"It's a direct judgment that is unequivocal in terms of the importance of a coroner's inquiry going ahead," said Samir Shaheen-Hussain, a member of the Justice for Anas Coalition.
"That it happens just before the hearings in the Bennis case is fortuitous, to say the least."