Superior Court of Justice, Windsor. (photo by Mike Vlasveld)Superior Court of Justice, Windsor. (photo by Mike Vlasveld)
Windsor

Sentence Handed Down In Hammer Attack

It'll be three-and-a-half more years in prison for the man who attacked a 13-year-old boy with a hammer in a Windsor neighbourhood.

Rafid Jihad, who has been in prison since the June 2014 incident, heard his attempted murder sentence this morning in the Superior Court of Justice.

Both Crown Attorney Brian Manarin and Jihad's Defence Lawyer Frank Retar were pleased with the ruling.

"There's obvious mitigating factors for Mr. Jihad, and one of those is the fact that he is suffering from certain mental illnesses," says Manarin. "The other is that there are obvious aggravating factors and they include a young person being violently struck with a hammer on a street, in broad daylight."

Retar says his client, however, was not so thrilled.

"Mr. Jihad is disappointed with the length of his sentence. He was hoping that he would be going home today with a probation order.  But that just wasn't in the cards," he explains.

Once Jihad serves his jail time, it's expected that a federal immigration panel will order him to be deported to Iraq, something he told the judge he is welcoming.

Retar's client never gave a clear motive for the attack, in court, but says Jihad told him it was a situation "in his mind, in which there was an incident which called for him to become an aggressor."

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