Drug dealer Eriklit Musollari was in a rage when he shot and killed rival gang member Peyman Hatami and has since created a web of fiction in an effort to hide his guilt, Crown prosecutor Julie Scott said Friday.
She accused the Albanian of creating an imaginary friend to protect the man who was his actual drug and gun supplier and of fabricating scenarios to support his claim that he was terrified on March 29, 2012, when he fired the bullet that pierced Hatami’s heart.
Musollari has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.
On March 11, more than two weeks before the fatal shooting outside a Hog’s Back-area strip mall, Musollari was beaten by convicted drug dealer Mustafa (Mousi) Waili, an associate of Hatami’s, for dealing drugs on his turf, court heard.
While another Waili associate named “Dice” played menacingly with a gun in the background, Musollari testified that Waili smashed him in the face, broke his nose and stole the “dirty” phone that held his list of cocaine clients.
That theft had set Musollari on a course of revenge, Scott alleged.
“You were punished by Mousi,” she told Musollari. “You felt humiliated.”
On March 29, while Musollari was conducting a $40 drug deal from the passenger seat of a customer’s car — again on the rivals’ patch — Waili and Hatami arrived on the scene, again demanding his phones. (He had replaced he one Waili had previously stolen).
Musollari testified that when Hatami began beating him through the half-open window he became terrified.
That fear, he says, led him to accidentally fire the gun.
Scott scoffed at Musollari’s claim that he was terrified of Waili.
“You aren’t just not afraid of Mousi, you are taking them on,” she said.
Musollari had testified he always carried his revolver and always in the waistband of his pants with the safety catch off.
But that didn’t make sense, said Scott.
“The reason you want us to believe the safety catch was off is that it would have been one extra step you had to take (before shooting).”
Not true, responded Musollari.
“At that point, panic reaches the highest peak,” he said. “Somehow I squeezed the trigger.”
Scott then rejected Musollari’s claim that he always carried the gun and said he made a deliberate decision to have it with him.
“You wanted to be ready to deal with trouble,” she said. “There was no way you were going to give up that phone. It was your dirty (customer) phone.”
Musollari said the scene was chaotic and the clash rapid.
“Maybe I should have given him the phone and I wouldn’t be here facing you,” he said.
Musollari, an Albanian, arrived illegally in Canada more than four years ago.
He had been living with family and studying in the Detroit area since 2008 shortly after fleeing what he said was an inter-family “blood feud” in Albania.
After twice being denied a Canadian visa, Musollari crossed the U.S.-Canada border in the trunk of a small car and applied for refugee status.
He agreed with prosecutor Scott that his life in Michigan had been totally supported financially by his family and he was able to study information technology without needing a job.
Scott asked him why he would come to Canada illegally and to an uncertain future when his life was so comfortable in the United States.
“I always wanted to come to Canada,” he said. “It met all the criteria for me hiding out from blood revenge.”
The trial continues Wednesday with final arguments from defence and prosecution.