Sierra Leonean in Canada faces second-degree murder charge

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 7 February 2021:

A 27-year-old man from the Sierra Leone community in Winnipeg, Canada, is in police custody and facing second-degree murder charges in connection with a January 28, 2021 assault on Craig Street in Winnipeg.

Issa Pa Musa was arrested last Monday evening in the death of Wendell John Boulanger, 44. Prior to his arrest, Musa was the subject of a Canada-wide warrant, as police warned members of the public not to approach him.

Police found Boulanger suffering from serious injuries on 28th of January 2021, after responding to a report of an assault.

Officers provided emergency first aid and the victim was rushed to hospital in critical condition. He later died of his injuries.

Court records show Issa Pa Musa, 27, was acquitted after trial last year of housebreak, entry and robbery, and other offences, after a judge ruled he had offered a “plausible” explanation for his presence at the McGee Street home.

Issa Pa Musa (Photo) is not new to the Canadian criminal justice system. Court heard testimony at trial that Musa and two other masked men broke into the house om 3rd of November 2018, and threatened occupants with a sword, before robbing them of property and cash.

A male resident at the house testified he spotted police through a window and signalled for help. As two of the robbers fled, the man and another resident grabbed Musa and hit him with a baseball bat, court was told.

Musa testified, telling court he went to the house looking to buy marijuana. He said when he knocked on the door, it was answered by an angry male who directed racist insults at him, sparking a fight. Musa said the man hit him in the face with a baseball bat and held him for police.

Justice Colleen Suche said inconsistencies in the evidence and the prosecution’s decision not to call two female residents as witnesses “left many, many questions unanswered that I simply can’t resolve.”

While she could not say she believed all of Musa’s testimony, Suche said she was left with a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.

In 2017, Musa was sentenced to six months less a day time served and one-year probation, after he struck two women with beer bottles at a house party.

Court heard Musa had become angry, believing partygoers had been stealing his drinks, when he threw a full beer at one woman, hitting her on the shoulder, and another at a woman’s face, breaking her nose. When other partygoers started yelling at him, Musa pulled out a machete and fled.

A sentence of six months or more would have triggered automatic deportation proceedings. Court heard Musa and his family immigrated to Canada from Sierra Leone in 2013.

Upon his release, Musa told court he hoped to spend time with his new-born son, go back to school, and “and stay out of trouble.”

Police issued a Canada-wide warrant for Musa’s arrest, after 44-year-old Wendell John Boulanger was found seriously injured just over a week ago – January 28, inside a Craig Street home. Boulanger was taken to hospital and later died.

Source/Credit: 40 Acres, Winnipeg, Canada; GlobalNews – Winnipeg FreePress

3 Comments

  1. This is the issue with our brothers in advanced countries. They don’t want to go to school and they don’t want to work. Look what happened in America. Wuna nor day learn at all. These guys don’t know what we are undergoing in Sierra Leone. If not for resilience and self belief, we would have joined gangster life. The day I will step my feet on any good soil, I will definitely make good use of it, come home and develop.

  2. Reckless Youth makes rueful age – Now here’s a guy almost my age that does not understand the intrinsic meaning of those words, who has applied them in a way that gives him the advantage instead.Those words are prudent advice that young people should take advantage of all the opportunities that they will not be able to seize when they get older. It seems Pa Musa has seen that he will not be as agile and as strong, to engage in thuggery and mischief in his old age, so he has decided to let the good people of Canada get a first-hand taste of his outlandish shenanigans.(lol) Pa Musa what were you thinking? What the hell happened to you man? How did you allow your sticky icky fingers to get entangled in such an intricate, web of misery so very far from home?

    If you ever wish to get out of the grips of the law a free man, you must first get yourself a good lawyer who specializes to the finger-tips in criminal law and you should remember that until the jury has made a final decision, no-one has the right to call you a criminal or murderer. No one, not even Mr Trudeau. Hang in there man. Mistake has already happened, you have already fallen inside a ditch swarming with hungry sharks, so now your focus should be how to get yourself out of there unscathed. But Stargazer can he get out unscathed from a second degree murder charge? Yup, with a good lawyer all things are possible, but his lawyer will have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he acted only in self defense – a reasonable use of force was used to resist a reasonable fear of bodily harm – that should be his defense otherwise he is TOAST.

    But Pa Musa is not alone, a lot of our African brothers are serving time in many advanced countries in sadness and gloom without a shoulder to lean or cry on. So very heartbreaking and sad to find yourself in a cold, freezing country where the system keeps on ticking like a clock and never permits no one a moment of rest, where noisy alarm clocks are like frantic roosters that crow tirelessly warning you that if you continue snoozing, you will end up losing your daily means of sustenance, in an unforgiving land so far away from home.Get yourself a good lawyer and see if there is anything your government can do to help. Good Luck to you man! It shall be well with you if only you can BELIEVE.

    • He didnt mean to kill him. He has done so much for people. He is a good guy. There were other people involved too, not just him. Prayers for my love to get out.

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