Mushin Aden was warned one year ago his long-awaited trial linked to a Sarnia bank robbery and a wild police chase to London that sent a mother and daughter to hospital in critical condition was going to start Monday, even if he had to represent himself.
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The Toronto man’s Sarnia trial had already been postponed twice after he fired two different lawyers during the drawn-out case dating back to 2019.
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But Monday’s jury trial has been canceled after all, but not related to any lawyer issues – the Lambton Crown attorney’s office believes he’s fled Canada for the Middle East.
While organizing what was expected to be a large trial featuring 25-35 witnesses from Sarnia and London, including several police officers from those cities and the OPP, the Crown learned Aden, who was out on bail, left the country on March 6, 2023 , we have a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight from Montreal.
“The Canada Border Services Agency do not have a record of Mr. Aden returning back to Canada,” assistant Crown attorney Aniko Coughlan recently told Superior Court Justice Russell Raikes, the same judge who warned Aden last year there wouldn’t be any more delays in his trial.
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The Crown also learned Aden’s two sureties went to a Newmarket courthouse in November and asked to be relieved of their duties, Coughlan told Raikes. Multiple warrants for his arrest are now outstanding in Ontario, she added.
Raikes issued another warrant for Aden’s arrest and canceled Monday’s jury trial.
“Doesn’t seem to me to be efficient or appropriate to require 150 people to wait at the Sarnia courthouse in a trial that’s unlikely to proceed,” he said.
The case will be discussed again in early February when all of Sarnia’s Superior Court of Justice cases are addressed.
Aden, 23 when he was arrested in 2019, was ordered to stand trial in 2020 on charges of robbery using a weapon or imitation firearm, disguise with intent, dangerous driving, theft from police, possession of property obtained by crime worth less than $5,000, and using an imitation firearm. The trial was initially scheduled to start in February 2022, but was canceled after Aden discharged local criminal defense lawyer Ken Marley. He was bumped again in January 2023 after he fired the Worsoff Law Firm in North York.
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Marley recently told Raikes via an agent he hasn’t heard from his former client.
The car chase started at the TD Canada Trust branch on the east end of Sarnia on July 28, 2019. Police said two male suspects wielding what appeared to be guns held up the bank and fled the scene before officers could arrive.
A chase led pursuing OPP officers east on Highway 402 and into London, where a police cruiser involved in the investigation collided with a taxi. Two passengers in the cab, a mother and child, were rushed to London hospital.
Their horrific injuries were later detailed in a $13-million lawsuit.
Hassan Ali, 21, was facing the same initial set of charges as Aden, but he pleaded guilty in March 2020 to bank robbery and wearing a disguise and was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison.
In April 2020, the Special Investigations Unit, Ontario’s police watchdog, said Middlesex OPP Const. Timothy Groves was charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and one count of dangerous driving, but he pleaded guilty later that falling to a lesser offense under Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act and the criminal charges were withdrawn.
-with files from the London Free Press
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