Mr. Ebrahimian, 28, was shot to death from the front seat of his cab in Hull, Québec at about 3:50 a.m. on Saturday, November 25, 1987. He was shot twice in the head. Residents of Isabelle Street were awakened by the sound of a car crash. They then heard a man shouting, followed by the sound of shots. A witness saw the fleeing assailant and was able to give police a description. A young man was arrested soon afterward and police recovered the murder weapon, a .357 calibre revolver. Mr. Ebrahimian and his killer were both scheduled to appear in court in December on charges of possessing an unregistered, restricted weapon in a motor vehicle. The charges had been laid in 1986 by the Gloucester, Ontario police and suggested a possible motive for the shooting. Mr. Ebrahimian, the son of a high-ranking Iranian military officer, came to Canada about ten years previously to study at the University of Ottawa. Apparently his family was trying to escape the worsening political situation in Iran. An 18-year-old brother to whom Mr. Ebrahimian regularly sent money was a student in West Germany. A 24-year-old sister lived in Italy. Their mother had visited Mr. Ebrahimian six months before his death and planned to return to stay with him permanently. At his trial, the tearful killer testified that he and Mr. Ebrahimian were "good friends." On the night of the shooting the killer and three other friends happened to hail Mr. Ebrahimian near the Chez Henri Hotel in Hull. After dropping off the other two men, Mr. Ebrahimian allegedly asked the killer if he knew someone who could sell him a gun. The killer said he had a gun that he had found earlier behind a bar called Friends and Company and they drove to his girlfriend's apartment to pick it up. The killer said he cocked the loaded gun while showing it to Mr. Ebrahimian as they drove off. Mr. Ebrahimian suddenly grabbed the gun with his left hand. [Next column]

Alireza Ebrahimian. (Source: Ottawa Citizen (Capital Edition), Monday, July 27, 1987 p. 1.) During a struggle it went off twice, hitting Mr. Ebrahimian in the head. The car went out of control and crashed. A ballistics expert testified that the revolver would not fire unless cocked before each shot. Despite this testimony the jury convicted the killer of manslaughter rather than murder. The killer was sentenced to seven years in prison but was released on parole in January, 1990. That same month he and three other men were arrested for the gangland execution of a small-time drug dealer and his pregnant common-law wife in Cumberland, Ontario. The resulting trial was the most expensive in Canadian legal history, costing an estimated 31 million dollars. The four men were initially convicted of murder but after 16 years of appeals and delays the charges were all dismissed in 2007. There were a number of irregularities in the prosecution of the case, but the main reason for dismissal was the Crown's reliance on a highly unreliable paid informant who was given $400,000 in exchange for his testimony.