TORONTO — A man convicted of murdering his three sisters and another woman is taking his case to the country's top court.
Hamed Shafia and his parents were found guilty in January 2012 of four counts of first-degree murder — killings their trial judge described as being motivated by their "twisted concept of honour."
In June 2009, the bodies of Shafia's teenage sisters and his father's first wife in a polygamous marriage were found in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ont.
During an appeal at the Court of Appeal for Ontario — which he lost in November — Shafia had argued, among other things, that new evidence showed he was too young to be tried as an adult and should have been tried separately.
The appeal court found no reason to allow Shafia's new evidence, which it said was not compelling.
But in an application for leave to appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada, Shafia's lawyers argue that the appeal court was wrong and that it had not applied a standard test for admitting fresh evidence.
