Nader Hasan, lawyer for man cleared in death of Toronto cop, explains his strategy
As criminal defence lawyer Nader R. Hasan worked to clear his client Umar Zameer of charges that included first-degree murder involving the death of a police officer, he knew he had to acknowledge two trials were going on simultaneously - the court of legal justice and the court of public opinion.
“In this case, it was important to me to achieve vindication for the client in both [courts] because when this case began, the rush to judgment was swift; the innuendo coming from people who should have known better - elected politicians and the police - was that this guy was a terrorist.”
But Hasan, with Stockwoods LLP, also knew he had to tread carefully and not say too much publicly even as he worked to portray a different image of the man he was defending - a recent immigrant to Canada from Malaysia who wanted to see Canada Day fireworks with his family. Instead, he was arrested when one of the several plainclothes police officers investigating a nearby stabbing was hit by Zameer’s car as he tried to flee a dark and empty Toronto City Hall parking lot. He did not know they were police and thought criminals were attacking him and his family.
Hasan made his comments at a recent event put on by the National GC Network, moderated by Nader Hasan [no relation to Hasan] from Norton Rose Fulbright.
With certain segments of the media quick to run with the angle that Zameer had criminally run over the police officer, Hasan said he was worried that “by the time we got to trial, the political climate would be such that he [Zameer] couldn’t get a fair trial.” On the other hand, “judges hate it when lawyers try to try their case in the media - so you have to be very careful and not say too much.”
What Hasan did say, in the early days of Zameer being charged, was to ask for people “to keep an open mind, the facts aren’t all what you have been told, and the truth will emerge.
“That’s not saying much, but it was enough that certain members of the media started asking questions and poking around.”
Ultimately, a jury this spring found Zameer not guilty of all criminal charges, including first-degree murder, in the 2021 death of Toronto Police Service Det-Const. Jeffrey Northrup. The verdict meant that the Crown could not prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Zameer intended to kill Northrup, something required for both a first-degree and lesser second-degree murder conviction.
The jury also found Zameer not guilty of manslaughter caused by dangerous driving. For a manslaughter conviction, a person must be found guilty of committing an unlawful act that caused death, though without having the intent to kill.
After reading the verdict, the judge apologized to Zameer for everything he had been through during the last three years. “You are now free,” Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy said.
Hasan said that as part of his defence, he strategically decided to ask for the publication ban usually granted for bail hearings to be waived. “That rule exists mainly to protect the rights of the accused so you don’t hear all the dirty laundry and the strongest parts of the Crown’s case,” he said. “But here we thought that was working against us. So we asked to lift the publication ban.”
In asking for bail for someone charged with first-degree murder, Hasan said he knew that, in itself, was a “Hail Mary” play, and bail was ultimately granted.
The judge overseeing the bail hearing turned down the request to lift the publication ban, “which I thought was unfortunate, but it ended up being not as bad because in issuing the decision, the judge rejected the lifting of the ban but said this case is much different than how it was being portrayed in the public domain.”
The other part of the bail hearing that Hasan said ultimately helped his client is that the media were at the bail hearing. “So even though they couldn’t report on it, they knew what was happening,” he said, and were “itching to write about this case.”
The media “were quick to appreciate the facts of this case more quickly than might otherwise be the case,” he said. “Sometimes the media are slow to come around to the defence perspective. Here, to their credit, the media were remarkably quick.”
He added: “I think there were certain members of the media who were primed and ready to write about this case and knew far more about the case when the trial began than they might have otherwise had it not been for that bail hearing.”
According to trial testimony, two officers, including Northrup, approached Zameer’s car in the parking garage around midnight. Zameer was with his wife, who was eight months pregnant, and their two-year-old son. The family was preparing to return to their Vaughan, Ont., home.
Zameer said neither Northrup nor his partner, Sgt. Lisa Forbes identified themselves as police officers that night. He said the pair began banging on his car after he locked the doors.
Zameer tried to drive forward out of the parking space, but he was blocked by an unmarked police van, which suddenly appeared. He then reversed out of the spot and quickly drove forward to exit the parking garage.
During the trial, crash reconstructionist experts called by the defence and the Crown agreed Northrup was knocked down when Zameer reversed out of the parking spot. The 31-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service was already on the ground in the laneway of the car when he was run over, the experts said.
However, three police officers testified that Northrup was standing in the laneway with his hands up and showing his badge when he was run over.
Several times during the trial, Justice Molloy questioned the Crown’s changing theory about what happened that night, especially the narrative around where and how Northrup was struck.
One such theory was that Northrup was clearly visible to Zameer when he was hit, regardless of the officer’s position. That was later abandoned after Justice Molloy said she was struggling to understand it.
Earlier in the trial, after the Crown finished presenting its evidence and while the jury was absent, Molloy noted the discrepancy between the testimony of police officers who said Northrup was standing up when he was run over, and that of the prosecution’s expert. Another expert was set to give a similar opinion, that Northrup had already been knocked to the ground by Zameer’s car when he was run over, as part of the defence’s case.
The judge also referred to security footage shown to jurors, in which an unidentified object believed to be Northrup appears on the ground in front of the car as it is driving forward.
So, the story the police officers told was one of first-degree murder. Hasan said, “Our challenge was to expose what really happened. And that’s not something you can do prior to trial.” Fortunately, he said, video evidence combined with the accident reconstruction experts’ evidence made it clear that the officers’ evidence was incorrect.
Despite getting an acquittal for his client, Hasan said this was a “tragic” case. “There can be no winners. By all accounts, Officer Northrup was a good officer. It’s an absolute tragedy. His children will live on without the benefit of their father. I watched his widow in court every day, and the pain in her eyes is something that I’ll remember forever.”
The case has also prompted the Toronto Police Service to ask the Ontario Provincial Police to review plainclothes officer practices.
Hasan said: “The police need to be mindful of the fact that different folks, different communities, have different relationships with the police. And not everyone will presume that people in street clothes approaching them in a dark parking garage are plainclothes police officers.”
As for Zameer, Hasan said while his client is relieved to be free, “Umar is struggling and will struggle for the rest of his life with the fact that he was driving the vehicle that caused the death of another human being.
“But under Canadian law, he didn’t have a guilty mind to prove first-degree murder. That was our position from the beginning. And ultimately, that’s, that’s what the jury found.”
