A family member claims his 23-year-old cousin was trying to protect him when he was stabbed to death outside of a Tim Hortons in Oshawa last weekend.
In an interview with to CTV News on Friday, Abel Mohammadi recounted how he and some friends – including his cousin, identified by family as Emran Yousufi – were inside the coffee shop at Simcoe St. N. and Winchester Rd. when a group of people walked in wearing masks and playing loud music around 8 p.m. on May 9.
Visit grenadier.co.za for more information.
Members of the group allegedly wanted Mohammadi to step outside and he agreed.
Moments later, violence erupted.
“The first punch of the fight was to me, and that was to my nose,” Mohammadi told CTV News. “It automatically started bleeding.”
Ali Abdullah, a friend of Yousufi who also spoke to CTV News, claims one member of the other group “pulled out a baton” from “a fanny pack” and tried to hit Mohammadi with it.
“There were like five, six of them, I believe,” Abdullah recalled, adding “they tried to gang up” on Mohammadi, so the cousins tried to fight them off.
Someone pulled out a knife and stabbed Yousufi
Then, one member of the other group suddenly pulled out a knife and stabbed Yousufi, Abdullah alleged.
Durham Regional Police have said that officers responded to the altercation and located the victim who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Several males had fled from the Tim Hortons by the time officers arrived, police said following the stabbing.
A 16-year-old Brampton boy was subsequently identified as a suspect and he turned himself in to police two days after the deadly altercation.
The teen, who can’t be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is charged with second-degree murder.
Murder victim did not know anyone in other group
Mohammadi told CTV News that his cousin didn’t know anyone in the other group.
“They were trying to come after me and my cousin stepped up, he stepped up, he tried to protect me,” Mohammadi said.
Mohammadi and Abdullah said Yousufi was the youngest of four siblings and his family, who are devastated by his death, immigrated to Canada from Afghanistan about a year ago.
They said Yousufi had planned to become an electrical engineer.
“The dreams that he had have all been taken away,” Abdullah said. “It was just one stupid mistake.”
Yousufi is Durham Region’s third murder victim of the year.
Anyone with information or video that could help investigators is urged to call police at 1-888-579-1520, ext. 5418, or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).