A former North Vancouver real estate agent has been found not guilty of involvement in a high-profile kidnapping case.
Nazfar Victoria Mirhadi was acquitted in B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday of all charges against her. One other woman, Veronica Moncur was also acquitted while the five men charged in the case were found guilty of unlawful confinement.
In her ruling, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce said the evidence showed Mirhadi acted as the go-between in a money-laundering deal involving kidnap victim Sulaiman Safi. But she said there was nothing that proved Mirhadi was involved in or knew about a plot to kidnap Safi and extort money from him.
Bruce wrote that while Mirhadi was aware Safi would have "serious problems" if he failed to return her clients' money that had gone missing "there is little evidence to suggest Mirhadi knew of a plan to kidnap him or was willfully blind to such a plan."
Bruce wrote it was just as likely that another woman - Mirhadi's original contact in the money laundering scheme - had tipped off the kidnappers to Safi's whereabouts on the day he was hustled out of a restaurant in Vancouver's West End and into a waiting vehicle.
During the trial, Crown prosecutors said Mirhadi first met Safi to discuss financing of real estate properties. But soon they were discussing a plan to launder $400,000 for one of Mirhadi's associates. After most of that cash was seized by police while being transported in a taxicab, Mirhadi demanded her money back and arranged to meet Safi at a restaurant.
There, a man approached their table and asked Safi to speak with him privately in his "office." But instead, the man led Safi outside, where he was shoved into an SUV, handcuffed and driven to another location.
Testifying by video link during the trial, Safi - who is serving an 81-month jail sentence for drug trafficking in California - described being taken to a small windowless room and threatened with torture and death as his captors demanded that he repay hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of his captors brought out a Glock handgun and pressed it to his head at one point, telling him, "These guys want the money now or you're going to die today."
After eventually convincing his captors that he had a plan to get the money back, Safi was released from the industrial area of Richmond where he had been held. By that time, police - who had been tipped to a possible kidnapping - had already set up surveillance on the alleged kidnappers. Six people - not including Mirhadi - were arrested soon after, in vehicles leaving the scene.
Following the verdict this week, Matthew Nathanson, Mirhadi's defence lawyer, said Mirhadi has been looking forward to clearing her name ever since the allegations surfaced about the kidnapping. "To be accused of a crime that you are not guilty of is always a very troubling and difficult thing."
Mirhadi, a former real estate agent, has not had a licence to practise real estate since November 2011, shortly after she was charged in the case.
Jessica Gossen, a lawyer for the Real Estate Council of B.C., said if Mirhadi applied for a licence, the real estate body would likely conduct its own review of the situation.
Thomas Roy Crawford, Robert Ryan Carr, David Russel Tarrant, Demple Manjit Brar and Edmond Joseph Gammel were all found guilty in the kidnapping plot.
