Ali Ngarukiye gets 16-year sentence for attempting to kill Montreal police officer
CBC News | Posted: March 4, 2025 10:40 PM | Last Updated: March 5
Ngarukiye attacked officer Sanjay Vig during 2021 traffic stop
The man who attacked a Montreal police officer in January 2021 in Parc-Extension has been sentenced to 16 years in prison.
In a sentence handed down at the Montreal courthouse on Tuesday, Justice François Dadour said that, by the technical standards, Ngarukiye should have been sentenced to 19 years. However, he reduced the sentence to 16 years, applying a legal concept known as the proportionality principle.
The sentencing guideline helps judges ensure that the sentence fits the seriousness of the crime and the level of responsibility of the offender.
In December 2023, Ali Ngarukiye was convicted of attempted murder, aggravated assault, disarming a police officer, discharging a firearm and carjacking. With credit for time served, he has 15 years and 239 days left behind bars.
Ngarukiye attacked officer Sanjay Vig during a traffic stop on Jan. 28, 2021. Ngarukiye disarmed Vig and fired his service weapon before fleeing. The gun has still not been recovered.
The attack led the police to mistakenly arrest Mamadi III Fara Camara, a driver who was at the scene of the attack.
Camara was charged with attempted murder and detained for six days, before being released by the court a few days later.
Ngarukiye was arrested nearly two months later, on March 25, in Toronto where he was known to the authorities for a history of fraud charges.
Traces of DNA left at the crime scene in Montreal led investigators to him, the jury heard during the trial.
Ngarukiye was also found guilty of second-degree murder last year in the death of his cellmate, André Lapierre, at the Rivière-des-Prairies detention centre, in June 2021.
The conviction came with an automatic life sentence, which Ngarukiye is appealing.
Corrections:- A previous version of this story said Ngarukiye was sentenced to 19 years. In fact, his sentence was reduced to 16 years minus time served. March 5, 2025 1:18 AM