Group descended on cars with weapons in west Mountain parking lot ambush before fatal stabbing: witnesses

As soon as the group of friends pulled their vehicles into a Limeridge Road West parking lot they saw a large group of young men running toward them.

They started hitting the car," Ali Kamran testified in a Hamilton courtroom Tuesday. The group had bats, one guy dragged a steel rod, others had sticks with nails in them. A blue hookah was thrown at the windshield.

He was in his friend Hamza Chaudry's blue Mustang. Chaudry's door was opened and he was hit. Outside of the car he saw Chaudry stabbed in the arm. Another friend from a different car was on the ground being kicked. Kamran said he was hit in the head and Tasered in the back.

There was nothing much I could do at the time," Kamran said. We were outnumbered by a lot ... every person was at least being attacked by four."

The chaos early July 19, 2020, would end with Chaudry's younger brother Ali Mohummad, 19, being stabbed to death. At first the friends didn't know where he was and told police he was missing, but officers later found his body near the scene. Video of the fight, including Mohummad being chased through the parking lot, surfaced on social media by the morning after the stabbing.

Kamran testified at the trial of two teens charged with second-degree murder. The boys, who were 17 at the time, cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The trial started earlier this month.

Another 17-year-old charged with second-degree murder in May 2021 is being tried separately.

Neither teen on trial now is accused of inflicting the fatal stab wounds, but rather organizing an ambush. Both were hit by a car during the melee, but who was driving that BMW is not clear.

Kamran was with a friend in Toronto that night, when he said got a call from Chaudry, who needed help in Hamilton. Chaudry, in his 20s, had got into an argument with two teenaged boys at a beach party earlier that summer. While out with a female friend in Hamilton July 18, Chaudry saw those same guys and they tried to follow him, Kamran testified.

Chaudry was alone and worried. He wanted to talk to these guys but wanted his friends there with him, Kamran testified. So Kamran and other friends drove to Hamilton.

In court, he insisted his group were calm and not looking for a fight, Chaudry only wanted to talk. Around 1 a.m. on July 19, Chaudry's group of between 10 and 13 drove in several cars over to the Limeridge plaza, east of Garth Street.

All these people there just to talk to these two teenagers?" defence lawyer Roylan Moriah asked.

Yes," Kamran replied.

Court also heard from Faizan Al Aziz, who was with Ali Mohummad and other friends at a bonfire in Mississauga that night. Mohummad got a call from his brother and these friends also drove to Hamilton to help.

Al Aziz also described being immediately attacked in the parking lot. His car windshield was hit with a rock and he fled in his car, he said.

On cross-examination, defence attorneys Jaime Stephenson and Moriah questioned the witnesses about whether their evidence was influenced by talking to others in the friend group.

Kamran admitted that, in his first statement to police, he identified one of the charged teens as the person who stabbed Chaudry, but later named the other.

When pressed, Kamran said he was shown pictures of the pair before the fatal meetup and mistakenly conflated the names. But later when looking through pictures on social media Chaudry named them again and Kamran realized his mistake. He insisted that he and his friends did not talk about details of the case.

The trial continues Thursday.

Nicole O'Reilly is a crime and justice reporter at The Spectator. noreilly@thespec.com