Arrest video of Ibrahim Ali released; Crown focuses on phone records

RCMP surveillance footage shows Ibrahim Ali taken into custody moments after his 2018 arrest as officers remove his boots, belt and cellphone, the culmination of a year-long murder investigation into the death of a 13-year-old girl.

The footage, shown to the jury in Ali's first-degree murder trial, shows him in Burnaby's RCMP detachment on Sept. 7, 2018 with his hands against the wall while he is searched. Officers testified that he was cooperative.

His cellphone is among items placed on the counter. The jury also watched an hour-long video of the phone sitting on a counter before it was bagged by an investigator and taken into evidence storage. Prosecutors said the purpose of the video was to show "continuity" of the evidence, meaning that the phone wasn't tampered with.

Crown has spent the past week hearing evidence on the phone records of both the suspect and victim.

Prosecutors allege the victim, whose name is protected by a publication ban, was walking through Burnaby's Central Park on July 18, 2017, when she was attacked and sexually assaulted by Ali as he strangled her to death.

The Crown says DNA evidence links Ali to the crime while cellphone records place him and the victim in Burnaby that day.

Cellphone evidence

Investigators have testified they were able to extract the phone number associated with the cellphone that was found in Ali's pocket on the day of his arrest. It was registered to a Bell Mobility account under the name Shamdan Ali. 

Avia Pinchiaroli, a Bell legal compliance associate who testified on Monday, said several calls were made from the phone on the evening of July 18, 2017 at around 8 p.m. They were picked up by a cell tower located near the southeast corner of Central Park, not far from where the victim's body was found hours later.

Pinchiaroli could not say how many cell towers are in the Burnaby area nor identify the precise location of the phone when the calls were made, but said generally the cell tower nearest to the phone will be the one that relays calls.

David Mak, an investigator with Rogers Communications, testified to the victim's cellphone activity.

Mak said the location of receiving towers were consistent with the Crown's theory of events, namely that the victim went to summer school that morning at Moscrop Secondary, which let out around noon.

A cell tower not far from the school picked up a call or text from the victim's phone at that time.

Four more calls or texts were made to the phone between 10:30 p.m. and 11:05 p.m.

Mak said the location of the cell tower the calls went through was consistent with where the victim's phone was found in Central Park.

Mak cautioned that towers couldn't prove the exact location of the phone, but usually indicate a phone is within a three-to-four kilometre radius of them.

In their opening statement, prosecutors said the victim's mother tried calling and messaging her that night before reporting her missing.