Man charged in fatal shooting of 15-year-old girl in St-Léonard, Que. last year

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A 26-year-old man who was already behind bars when he was arrested Monday has been charged with the homicide of Meriem Boundaoui, a 15-year-old lady shot in St-Léonard in February last year.

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Salim Touaibi, 26, made a quick look earlier than Quebec Courtroom Choose Geneviève Graton on the Montreal courthouse Monday afternoon the place he was charged with first-degree homicide within the teenager’s dying.

Prosecutor Anne-Andrée Charette knowledgeable the choose that members of the sufferer’s household have been within the courtroom to look at as Touaibi was formally charged by a videoconference connecting the Montreal courthouse to the Rivière-des-Prairies Detention Centre.

On Feb. 7, 2021, Meriem was seated in a gray Volkswagen exterior Boulangerie Castel on the nook of Valdombre and Jean-Talon Sts. when she was shot. The Montreal police later stated they believed she was within the incorrect place on the incorrect time when she was killed and was not the meant goal of the capturing.

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Touaibi was not required to enter a plea to the fees he faces. Defence lawyer Xavier Desrosiers merely requested that the case be carried over to July 22 whereas Touaibi stays detained in one other case.

In addition to being charged with homicide, Touaibi additionally faces 4 counts of tried homicide associated to the identical capturing. He’s alleged to have tried to kill 4 different individuals whereas utilizing a firearm. The 4 individuals do not need prison data in Quebec.

In a information convention held solely minutes earlier than Touaibi appeared in courtroom, Montreal police Commander Salvatore Serrao stated the lady was killed as the results of a battle between two teams.

“What I can affirm is that younger Meriem had nothing to do with the battle between the 2 teams,” Serrao stated, whereas including investigators consider at the very least one different individual was concerned within the capturing however that he wouldn’t remark any additional as a result of the investigation is ongoing.

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“What I can affirm is {that a} suspect was arrested and he (didn’t act) alone and he participated instantly. It’s for that cause that he’s charged with first-degree homicide,” Serrao stated. “The power of a police investigation is in its rigour. It could actually’t be accomplished rapidly. You need to take time. Our investigators are decided (and) they’re devoted.

“There are components of proof to collect, there are witnesses to satisfy, there may be proof to be analyzed. It’s advanced and it takes time. We don’t wish to lose a suspect so we are able to ship justice to the household.”

On the night time of the capturing, Meriem was contained in the Volkswagen with a 21-year-old man she had met on-line. He escaped the capturing unscathed and she or he was shot within the head at the very least as soon as.

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{The teenager} got here to Canada from Algeria in 2014 to review right here whereas she lived with a sister and her household in La Prairie on the South Shore.

“She all the time stated she wasn’t going again to Algeria, however that she would convey our dad and mom right here,” the lady’s different sister Safia, who lives in Pointe-aux-Trembles, told the Montreal Gazette recently. “She was so completely happy, however (her killers) didn’t let her proceed her life right here.”

Touaibi’s present tackle is listed on the cost sheet as being the Rivière-des-Prairies Detention Centre.

He was arrested there Monday morning whereas already detained in one other case, the place on June 10, Touaibi was discovered responsible of possessing a prohibited or restricted firearm. He was additionally discovered responsible of getting violated a courtroom order, imposed on him in 2020, that he not possess a firearm for 10 years. The sentencing levels of these two instances are scheduled to start in September.

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The courtroom order was issued on Aug. 11, 2020, when Touaibi was sentenced to a 24-month jail time period in a special case that concerned a firearm. When the time he had already served was factored into the sentence, he was left to serve 5 months in jail.

He was additionally convicted, in 2019, of possessing hashish with the intent to visitors. In 2017, he and one other man have been arrested within the car parking zone of a residential constructing in Anjou. An nameless caller reported seeing a automobile idling within the car parking zone after midnight on Feb. 25, 2017. Two officers who have been assigned to take a look at the automobile requested Touaibi and the opposite man to decrease their home windows, and after they did, the distinct odour of hashish got here wafting out. The law enforcement officials discovered practically 20 grams of pot, in addition to two scales and a number of other cellphones contained in the automobile.

pcherry@postmedia.com