ALLEGED GANG BOSS FREED OVER POLICE ERRORS

Ottawa Officers Deliberately Misled Judge, Breached Suspect's Rights,
to Secure Wiretap, Court Rules

A man police allege is the leader of a violent Ottawa street gang was
released from custody yesterday after the case against him collapsed
due to "serious" breaches of his Charter rights -- breaches committed
by police.

Nnanyere Obiorah, 25, who Ottawa police say is a leader of the Ledbury
Banff Crips, was released after 18 months in jail. He maintains he is
not a member of the Crips or any other gang.

The stunning end to the high-profile case came when Ontario Court
Justice Hugh Fraser ruled Ottawa police weren't acting in "good faith"
when they erroneously named Mr. Obiorah as a suspect in a murder in
order to get another judge to allow a wiretap on the man's phone.

Judge Fraser found police purposely fingered Mr. Obiorah as a suspect
in the murder of Brashir Sahal, when they knew he was not, in order to
get the wiretap for a drug, weapons, and gang investigation that led
to his arrest.

So egregious were the officers' actions, the evidence against the
accused had to be deemed inadmissible in order to protect the
integrity of the justice system, Judge Fraser said.

Information from the wiretap suggested Mr. Obiorah was dealing crack
cocaine. This led police to get a search warrant. A pistol, 100 grams
of crack cocaine, and roughly $60,000 were found in Mr. Obiorah's possession.

He was charged with several offences.

When a person's rights are breached in a criminal case, judges must
balance the seriousness of the charges against the seriousness of the
breach and determine whether it's in the interests of justice to allow
or disallow evidence obtained by the commission of the breach.

Judge Fraser said the charges against Mr. Obiorah were serious, but
that the deliberate manner in which Sgt. Bruce Pirt and Sgt. Greg
Brown acted demanded the evidence gathered on the tap and during the
search be tossed.

To admit the evidence would be to condone grossly inappropriate
actions by officers sworn to uphold the laws of Canada, including the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Judge Fraser found.

"The breach is not minor, or technical, or trivial," the judge said.
"It cannot be stated that the breach was in good faith."

Immediately after the ruling, federal prosecutor Claudine Girault told
the court the Crown now had no evidence to call, and the judge
dismissed the charges against Mr. Obiorah.

Ms. Girault had argued the officers had been acting in good faith when
they approached Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny with a
package of information supporting Mr. Obiorah as a suspect in the
August 2003 shooting death of Mr. Sahal, 23, in an apartment building
on Caldwell Avenue.

But the judge sided with Mr. Obiorah's lawyer, Susan Mulligan, and
found the officers deliberately overstated the case against Mr.
Obiorah and left out information they had that suggested he was not
involved in the killing.

"The justice was misled," Judge Fraser said.

It was a violation of Mr. Obiorah Charter of Rights guarantees to
privacy and "to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure,"
Judge Fraser said.

Ms. Mulligan said the officers may have felt they were doing the right
thing at the time, but that in their drive for an arrest, they lost
sight of their duties.

"The police have a responsibility to uphold the law, including the
Charter of Rights," she said. "In this case, they fell well short of
meeting their responsibility.

"They knew he wasn't a suspect, and they purposely ignored information
that would have made it clear to the justice that he was not a
suspect. The whole thing was a facade. It was a fraud on the court
really."

Sgt. Pirt and Sgt. Brown both said they couldn't fully comment on the
judge's ruling. However, Sgt. Pirt wanted to get one thing clear.

"At one stage of the investigation, Nnanyere Obiorah was a suspect,"
he said. "We had information to support that. We acted in good faith."

Mr. Obiorah, who is no stranger to Ottawa's courts, was arrested
during what police billed as major gang bust in April 2004.

At the time, police held a press conference and displayed guns, drugs
and cash seized from alleged members of the gang, which gets its name
from a housing project in south Ottawa.

Charges were laid against 14 alleged members of the gang and
associates.

Police said the investigation into the killing exposed the workings of
a volatile gang involved in drug trafficking, weapons, and
prostitution, whose operation covered much of the city.

They also cited the bust as evidence of an increasing gang problem in
Ottawa that they needed more money to fight.

However, a few months later, charges against the men started being
dropped in court by the Crown.

The problem was much of the information against these men was also
gathered in the wiretap on Mr. Obiorah's phone.

Ahmed Mohamed Ali, 23, and Ahmed Shurk Aden, 21, were eventually
arrested and charged with first-degree murder for Mr. Bashir's
killing. They are currently awaiting trial.