Saeed Mobeen Rana guilty of attempted murder
IN April 2016, there were four shootings in Surrey in four days – from April 2 to April 5 – at which stage the city had registered 32 shootings that year with nine males being injured and one killed.
The shooting on April 4 almost got an innocent man killed because of mistaken identity.
The innocent man suffered a gunshot wound in the Newton area at 86A Avenue and 140th Street in broad daylight. Surrey RCMP said that at about 1:55 p.m., they responded to several reports of shots being fired in the area. The wounded male was taken to a local hospital with what were believed to be non-life threatening injuries.
This week, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Pearlman found Saeed Mobeen Rana was one of three men who had opened fire on the innocent 19-year-old student that day who was headed to his university from home. The victim’s name is under a publication ban.
The student told the court that he had pulled over his father’s black BMW that he was driving to the side of the road when, a short time later, a black SUV pulled up beside him. He saw a gun pointing at him as the front and rear passenger windows were rolled down.
Multiple shots were fired at him. He ducked but was struck in the thigh. The SUV drove away.
Police found 16 bullet holes in the BMW. Another two bullet holes were found in the fences of homes.
Rana, who was convicted on Monday of attempted murder, possessing a loaded, restricted firearm and occupying a vehicle in which there was a gun, was at the time one of the leaders of a drug trafficking group that was in conflict with another group of dealers, according to the Crown.
The day before that shooting, a vehicle associated with Rana had been targeted by the rival group.
(On April 3, 2016, at 5:45 p.m., there was a shooting at the corner of 88th Avenue and 132nd Street in Surrey. Police said that investigation showed that when two vehicles were at the intersection on a red light, the suspect vehicle had stopped in a turn bay while the victim vehicle was in the second lane next to the turn lane. Multiple shots were fired into the victim vehicle. The suspect vehicle was described as an SUV and the victim vehicle as a car. No injuries were reported.)
Crown told the court that Rana’s group arranged a meeting with their rival group, supposedly to arrange the sale of drugs. However, the actual goal was to take revenge and ambush them.
Although the defence argued that the Crown had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt and questioned the accounts of the two key witnesses for the Crown, the judge found that the witnesses had not colluded in their testimony. He noted that one of the witnesses recognized that his best interests lay in giving an accurate account of the events.
The judge said that he was satisfied that the witness was being truthful when he identified Rana as an occupant of the van and one of the shooters. He found that Rana had fired five of the shots at the victim’s vehicle.
Last November, John Stanley Cullen was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the same case after he pleaded guilty to attempted murder.
Rana’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 6.