The man responsible for the attempted murder of a Montreal police officer that led to the wrongful arrest of a suspect in 2021 was sentenced to 16 years behind bars.
Ali Ngarukiye was found guilty last year of attempting to kill officer Sanjay Vig on Jan. 28, 2021, along with related gun charges and auto theft.
He had disarmed the police officer and shot him near the Metropolitan autoroute, leaving Vig with a head injury.
Back then, police wrongfully arrested Mamadi Camara, who had called 911 to report that the officer who had just pulled him over for a ticket had been assaulted. But Sanjay Vig later pointed Camara to his colleagues, who rushed to the scene, because he thought he was the one who assaulted him.
Both Camara and Ngarukiye are Black men. Camara spent a week in jail before investigators realized their mistake, after watching a video surveillance camera on the highway.
On Tuesday, Superior Court Justice François Dadour sentenced Ngarukiye to 16 years in prison, minus time already served. It took the judge three hours to read his ruling.
While the accused sat down and listened, his young daughter waved to her father in the prisoner’s box.
Crown prosecutor Louis Bouthillier demanded that Ngarukiye be sentenced to life in prison under the designation of dangerous offender.
“We were looking for life imprisonment. We were looking for Mr. Ngarukiye to be declared a dangerous offender. So, obviously, it’s a far cry from what was rendered today [but] it’s a serious sentence,” Bouthillier told reporters outside of court.
“It’s a long sentence, but obviously it falls short of what we were looking for just here.”
Defence lawyer Sharon Sandiford requested a seven-year sentence, arguing that Ngarukiye was mentally unstable and couldn’t think clearly.
“Well, it’s a fair and reasonable sentence,” Sandiford said.
“As you all heard, the judge went through in detail all the principles of sentencing and all the objectives of sentencing, as well as individualization and the proportionality tests. So, he went over all the key principles and arrived at a just and fit and fair sentence tailored to the accused, which is what our law requires.”
Bouthillier had argued that Ngarukiye told an imam in Toronto that he wanted to kill as many police officers as possible.
He was never charged with terrorism, so the judge rejected the evidence as an aggravating factor.
Shortly after his arrest, Ngarukiye also murdered his cellmate, Andre Lapierre, after taking offence to a suggestive tattoo the victim was sporting. The murder was extremely brutal, leaving Lapierre’s body disfigured, and his thoracic cage and internal organs seriously damaged.
Ngarukie was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to 15 years.
While Bouthillier wanted to argue the murder as an aggravating factor, the judge ultimately rejected the argument, because Ngarukie is appealing that conviction.
