Hamed Shawnawaz, a former co-accused of Samir Abdelgadir charged with the kidnapping of a Toronto teen over an alleged drug ripoff in March 2020, testified Friday that his former friend confided in him four days after the abduction.
Shawnawaz said the two met in the Maplehurst Institution in 2015, where they spent 58 days together as cellmates. Upon his release from jail, Shawnawaz testified he would buy drugs from Abdelgadir which he then trafficked in Winnipeg where he lived.
In 2016, Shawnawaz said he was sentenced to nine years and nine months in prison for two drive-by shootings and upon being released on parole from Beaver Creek Institution in 2019, he said reached out to Abdelgadir to see if there was any way to “make money on the side.”
At the time, he was living in a halfway house in Brampton and working as a machine operator at a brownie factory. He testified the $20 per hour he was making “wasn’t sustainable with his way of life and lifestyle spending.”
Shawnawaz told Superior Court Justice Sandra Nishikawa, who is presiding over the judge-alone trial, that he was interested in white-collar crime, which he defined as “not hurting someone, a human being. What I’ve been charged with in the past.” He explained that drug dealing was out of the question. “Samir would not front anything to me without cash,” he explained.
Shawnawaz said Abdelgadir put him in contact with some associates would were looking for someone to pick up stolen vehicles and light them on fire as part of an insurance scam. He testified he was paid $1,000 to $2,000 per vehicle and often worked with a friend from high school named Solaiman Nassimi who would help him steal the vehicles.
Shawnawaz said he didn’t remember when the Jeep Wrangler was stolen from but said after it was stolen, he parked it near his ex-wife’s house and waited for further instructions. He said he didn’t know what happened on the morning of March 4, 2020, because he was staying at the halfway house but later that day, he got a call from an associate named “Sunny” who let him know where the vehicle was and to get rid of it. Shawnawaz didn’t remember specifically where Nassimi picked up the Jeep but said when they arrived, the keys were inside.
The former drug dealer testified he drove the Jeep to the Forks of the Credit conservation area and poured gasoline from a jerry can over the inside of the vehicle. After lighting a flare, Shawnawaz said initially it didn’t light because there was no oxygen, but after opening the window a bit, there was a fireball and it blew up the inside of the vehicle.
“My eyebrows were burnt and literally felt like my face just smelled like gasoline,” Shawnawaz said. “I started to panic a bit, the fire was raging, it was very icy and dark. I ran back to Solaiman Nassimi’s vehicle and we left.”
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Shawnawaz said they drove back to the shopping plaza where he’d left his car before returning to the halfway house. He said that after having a shower and throwing his clothes in the washing machine because they smelled of gasoline, an Amber Alert went off.
“That’s when I realized what the Jeep was used for. The description to the T of what the vehicle looked like. I got nervous and started panicking. Just wondering if I had done anything wrong to track back to me.”
Four days later, Shawnawaz testified he met Abdelgadir at a Starbucks near Hurontario Street in Mississauga, close to the QEW, and talked for the first time about the kidnapping. “How it didn’t go according to plan and how livid he was,” Shawnawaz told court how Abdelgadir “opened up, he didn’t want to give up what he had taken and there was a lot of heat on him, on his team.”
Assistant Crown attorney Erin Pencer asked if he knew what Abdelgadir was talking about. Shawnawaz replied, “Essentially, I did, yes. That it was a large amount of cocaine. I knew that there was a large amount of cocaine that they had lost.”
Pencer asked if it was the first time Shawnawaz heard about the kidnapping from him. Shawnawaz said it was but explained he didn’t ask any questions. “Samir’s a dangerous individual. I didn’t want him to know I was scared so I didn’t ask those kind of questions.”
According to an agreed statement of facts filed at the start of the trial, a 14-year-old boy whose identity is covered by a publication ban was abducted around 8:30 a.m. on March 4, 2020, outside 345 Driftwood Ave., after witnesses reported seeing two men grabbing the teen and throwing him into a black Jeep Wrangler. The teen was driven in the Jeep, in tandem with a black Tahoe and a white Mercedes SUV to a house on Edgeforest Drive in Brampton.
When the vehicle stopped, the teen was told to get out and close his eyes. He was then blindfolded with a white t-shirt. Zip ties were used to secure his wrists. He was taken to the downstairs of the house where his feet were tied with a rope.
While there, the kidnappers asked for the password to his phone and how he communicated with his half-brother. He told them he would sometimes use Snapchat. The kidnappers told the boy that was because his brother had done something wrong to them.
That afternoon, the teen’s mother took a nap and woke up to find three missed calls from her older son, the teen’s half-brother. She called her son back and he told his mother that he had received a message from his younger brother’s Snapchat that said “Give up what you stole, and everything will be ok.”
The mother tried to text her 14-year-old son but he didn’t text her back. She also learned that her son had never arrived at school that day. At 5:37 p.m., the boy’s father called 911 and told the dispatcher his son had been kidnapped and never arrived at school that day.
When police arrived, the teen’s half-brother admitted he owed some people money, about $50,000 in total. The brother would not say why he owed the money but he stated it wasn’t for drugs or guns. The brother also provided police with two voice messages and two videos that he received that day.
One of the videos showed the 14-year-old lying on the ground with his ankles and wrists bound. On the screen, it said, “Do u want the fingers or to your mom’s house?” The second video showed the teenage boy lying on the ground with his hands and ankles tied. On the screen, it said, “senor u still laughing?”
According to the facts, the teen said during the time he was held captive, he overheard his captors having what sounded like an argument over the phone. While he was blindfolded throughout his order, he would peek out from behind the blindfold from time to time. After six hours at the house, he fell asleep. While he was in the boiler room, he was fed McDonald’s and Tim Hortons. He also drew his initials in dust on a mirror.
On March 4, 2020, at 9:57 p.m., a call was made to 911 regarding a fire at the Forks of the Credit Provincial Park. When police arrived, the officer observed a vehicle fully engulfed in flames.
On March 5, just after midnight, an Amber Alert was issued for the 14-year-old boy with a vehicle description matching the burned-out vehicle found at the Forks of the Credit. The officer believed the vehicle he found in the park was related to the kidnapping.
In the evening hours of March 5, the teen’s wrists and ankles were untied and left in the boiler room of the house. The duct tape, ropes and zip ties with the teen’s DNA were left on the floor. His clothes were then removed and he was given a reflective construction vest to wear.
The teen was taken to the garage of the house and noticed multiple suspects in the house. He was taken in a vehicle that was not the Jeep Wrangler to a rural property located on Heritage Road in Brampton. He was left in a barn on the property and was subsequently located by police at 10:15 p.m. that night, roughly 38 hours after being abducted. The teen was wearing underwear, a reflective vest and did not have shoes on.
Shawnawaz told the court he pleaded guilty to stealing the Jeep and setting it on fire in August 2023. The kidnapping charge against him was withdrawn. He said decided to give a statement to police after pleading guilty.
“I had many years to think about the lifestyle that I chose. I felt like it was the right thing in setting me free and changing my life,” Shawnawaz told the court about why he decided to testify.
Solaiman Nassimi, who also pleaded guilty to stealing the Jeep and setting it on fire, is expected to testify on Monday. His kidnapping charge was also withdrawn by the Crown.
The Crown stayed charges against Scott McManus in 2020. He was charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, namely kidnapping. Liban Hussein’s charges were also dropped following the preliminary hearing. He was subsequently murdered in March 2024.
Samid Abdelgadir has pleaded not guilty and is out on bail.
