Diplomat's son gets race-based discount on kidnapping sentence

His father, a diplomat, helped him buy his first condo in Mississauga, Ont.

His brother later helped him purchase a house in Hamilton and invest in several legitimate businesses.

But a judge considered his race while sentencing Samir Abdelgadir for helping to kidnap a 14-year-old Black boy for 36 hours in order to recoup 90 kilograms of cocaine stolen by the boy’s half-brother.

Abdelgadir, 45, was convicted last year in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice for the March 2020 kidnapping where the teen was snatched as he left for school.

Before his sentencing, Abdelgadir, who is a Black Muslim, obtained an Impact of Race and Cultural Assessment (IRCA) from the Viola Desmond Justice Institute, which was completed this past January.

“To be clear, the effects of anti-Black racism do not excuse Mr. Abdelgadir or lessen the seriousness of the offence. However, I am satisfied that there is some connection between Mr. Abdelgadir’s life experience, anti-Black racism, and his commission of the offence such that it mitigates somewhat his degree of responsibility for the offence,” Justice Sandra Nishikawa wrote in a recent decision.

According to the federal Justice Department, IRCAs “are pre-sentencing reports that help sentencing judges to better understand the effect of poverty, marginalization, racism, and social exclusion on the offender and their life experience.”

Born in North Sudan, Abdelgadir was estranged from his father, a Sudanese diplomat, at the age of 19 when his parents divorced, said Nishikawa’s decision.

“Mr. Abdelgadir has been heavily impacted by his father’s employment with the UN, multiple relocations, exposure to armed conflict, and unsafe environments,” Nishikawa said.

During his childhood, Abdelgadir “witnessed bodies piled in the streets during the civil war in Yemen in the 1980s. Mr. Abdelgadir was subject to racism during his childhood in Bahrain,” she said. “The IRCA describes that he faced significant discrimination as a Black Muslim, and that his family’s home was attacked.”

Abdelgadir moved to Mississauga at the age of 19 to live with family, then Hamilton to study at McMaster University, where he completed a Bachelor of Commerce and Economics.

According to Nishikawa’s decision, “Abdelgadir has experienced a significant degree of anti-Black racism that has manifested itself in many aspects of his life, most significantly in his decision to sell marijuana to support himself as a student, which led to his repeated interactions with the police. The length of time that Mr. Abdelgadir has spent in custody over the years, without being convicted of an offence, has not only had a detrimental impact on him but also on his ability to pursue employment and prosocial relationships. These experiences played some role in limiting his opportunities and contributing to the circumstances leading to the criminal conduct at issue here.”

According to his IRCA, Abdelgadir was accepted into a Master of Business Administration program at Toronto Metropolitan University, “but his involvement with the criminal justice system prevented him from pursuing further education. His long-term aspirations include resuming his education and completing graduate studies in economics.”

Abdelgadir’s housing arrangements are currently “precarious,” according to the IRCA. He “describes his unsuccessful attempts at finding an apartment following his graduation from McMaster, which it attributes to discrimination.”

His father helped him with a downpayment on a Mississauga condo in 2002. “In 2006, his brother provided him financial support to purchase a house in Hamilton ‘to move away from marijuana sales and pursue legitimate entrepreneurship.’”

Abdelgadir was “shot three times in May 2023, which required an eight-month hospitalization,” according to the IRCA. “He has lasting impairments, including difficulty walking for extended periods and chronic exhaustion when outside for more than an hour.”

Abdelgadir “uses marijuana daily to manage pain,” and “acknowledges symptoms consistent with PTSD, including nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, and difficulty concentrating.”

According to the IRCA, Abdelgadir “reported difficulty in obtaining employment as a Black Muslim man in Canada in the early 2000s. He was ‘largely unable to secure gainful employment,’ working odd jobs during his last years of university when his father stopped financing his education. After submitting résumés without receiving callbacks, he then moved towards ‘informal economies’ including marijuana sales, which he describes as both ‘a coping mechanism and a means of survival.’”

Abdelgadir worked briefly in a restaurant and started a landscaping business “post-graduation for two summers before investing in real estate, flipping houses and condominiums for profit.”

He invested in two fast-food franchise locations in Hamilton and Woodbine Mall, but was eventually “forced out,” Abdelgadir told the authors of his IRCA.

“His brother provided the financial support for many of these ventures.”

Abdelgadir describes his interactions with police “as being racially motivated,” said the decision.

“The IRCA describes police entering his home, seizing money and intimidating him as part of broader systemic racial profiling, which included spending four and a half years in jail on firearm charges that were eventually dismissed. He estimates having been arrested or detained approximately twenty times, with charges ranging from substance possession to serious violent offenses.”

Abdelgadir alleged “he has been extorted by members of the Hamilton police,” and that “on one occasion, they raided his house and took $50,000 in cash from him, which he was planning to use to fund his MBA program.”

First arrested at 21 for drug possession, Abdelgadir “was taken into custody ‘multiple times’ for substance-related charges, including marijuana and cocaine possession, as well as curfew violations,” said the decision.

“As the IRCA highlights, Mr. Abdelgadir ‘emphasizes that his stagnation was not the result of a lack of ambition or ability, but rather the consequence of systemic racism, repeated police targeting, and unjust criminalization that disrupted his educational and employment trajectory. He maintains that these external barriers, rather than personal failings, explain the interruptions in his professional development.”

The court heard that on the morning of March 4, 2020, on Toronto’s Driftwood Avenue “three men emerged from a Jeep, grabbed S.J. and forced him into the vehicle as he screamed and struggled to resist. Two other vehicles accompanied the Jeep to and from the Driftwood Avenue complex where S.J. was kidnapped: a white Mercedes and a black Chevrolet Tahoe.”

Abdelgadir was driving the Tahoe, said the March 27 decision.

“S.J. was then taken to a vacant house on Edgeforest Road in Brampton. He was bound and blindfolded. At trial, S.J.’s half-brother, Olalekan Osikoya, admitted that he had stolen 90 kilograms of cocaine from the people for whom he worked. While S.J. was held at the house, the kidnappers called and sent messages to Mr. Osikoya, demanding that he return the cocaine that he had stolen.”

Thirty-six hours after he was taken, the kidnappers released the boy “without proper clothing in the cold in a secluded, wooded area” in Caledon.

The judge “found that the kidnapping was a coordinated, planned event among a number of individuals. Mr. Abdelgadir was an associate of kilogram-level drug traffickers, Giovanni Raimondi and Scott McManus; Mr. Osikoya testified to delivering cocaine regularly to Mr. Abdelgadir.”

The victim “states that the kidnapping damaged the person he thought himself to be and brought about one of the worst moments of his life. After the kidnapping, S.J. could not sleep on his own, because when he tried to sleep, he relived every detail of the abduction.”

The boy told authorities there was a lot of aggression directed toward him during the kidnapping. “I thought I was going to die and that feeling has never left me.”

The boy’s father “describes watching S.J. become a different person, from the ‘family jokester’ to barely speaking to him. ‘The permanent damage that has been done to me and my family as a result of someone kidnapping my son echoes (in) every part of me.’”

After the kidnapping, “he damned near went mute,” said the victim’s brother.

The Crown recommended Abdelgadir get 16 years in a penitentiary. His lawyer argued for five.

“The appropriate range is 11 to 13 years,” said the judge. “The kidnapping of an innocent boy for criminal financial gain, steps from his home, while on his way to school, is a very serious offence.”

After crediting Abdelgadir for his time spent on stringent bail conditions, in pre-trial custody, and in harsh jail conditions, the judge sentenced him to 9.5 years in prison.

“The harm caused to S.J. is immeasurable,” Nishikawa said.

“His life changed forever the day that Mr. Abdelgadir and others decided to kidnap him as leverage for his brother’s actions.”

Abdelgadir denies involvement in the kidnapping.

“His refusal or inability to accept responsibility for the offence committed or for the harm he caused to S.J. means that he lacks insight about why he engaged in such harmful, unlawful activity and the consequences of his actions on others,” said the judge.

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