Girl’s killer, sentenced to life, sticks fingers in his ears as her father tells of torment

As the father of a 13-year-old girl described his torment since her rape and killing, Ibrahim Ali, the man convicted of murdering her, hung up the phone on an interpreter at his sentencing hearing.

Ali, who was attending by video, then stuck his gloved fingers in his ears.

The family of the girl told the B.C. Supreme Court sentencing hearing of their overwhelming grief on Friday, with her father saying in his recorded statement that he contemplated suicide and bashed his head against a wall until he was streaming with blood.

Ali received a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The girl’s brother had earlier told the hearing that his mother was “utterly destroyed” by the girl’s death, and that he was haunted by his final text messages to her, when he said he was unkind.

None of the relatives can be named because of a publication ban on identifying the victim, who was found dead in Burnaby’s Central Park in July 2017.

The father, who delivered a recorded impact statement by video, described how he was in China when he first heard that his daughter was missing, then was found dead.

“I felt like a light suddenly went out … my mind went black,” the man said. He said he hid in his bathroom and contemplated suicide, and that he bashed his head on a wall “until blood streamed down my face and I couldn’t stand.”

Ali was found guilty of firstdegree murder last December. The jury took less that 24 hours to deliberate.

He listened to some of the family’s statements on Friday through an interpreter, but stuck his black-gloved fingers in his ears during parts of the father’s remarks.

In his statement, the father said he and the girl’s mother moved to Canada to have her because of China’s one-child policy. He said that when she was born he was scared to hurt his fragile newborn child, but vowed to protect her.

The brother held his head in his hands during parts of his father’s statement, which lasted 47 minutes.

The father told the court about the day he learned his daughter died, and the day of her funeral. He said he would often visit her grave, but the grass was dry despite his efforts to water it.

“The grass hasn’t turned green for seven years,” he said, before addressing the girl. “Your mom, brother and daddy — we all loved you very much and all of us wanted to protect you, but we were not able to do so.”

The father said there was “no trace of happiness or unhappiness” in the verdict, describing the trial process as “too long” and “too torturous.”

“Even falling asleep, I would suffer from nightmares. It would make me scream, howling,” he said.

He added that while the girl “may be gradually forgotten by others,” her death would “always burden” him and his family.

At the end of the impact statements, Ali was given the opportunity to make a statement of his own. He insisted, through an interpreter, that he “didn’t kill this girl.”

“Judge, I didn’t do this. This is unfair. I didn’t do this,” he said.

Immediately after Ali spoke, Judge Lance Bernard sentenced him to a life term without any chance of parole for 25 years, the mandatory sentence for first-degree murder.