Murder trial to be moved

Three men charged in the 2009 murder of a Kitchener woman will have their case heard outside the city.

The Waterloo Region Record is reporting that Ron Cyr, Zdenek Zvolensky and Nashat Qahwash will have their first-degree murder trial outside Waterloo Region. A publication ban prevents the disclosure of specific details behind the move. The Record suggests London and Hamilton are possibilities as new sites.

Joe Wamback of the Canadian Crime Victims Foundation says defense lawyers often make requests for venue changes in hopes of finding a friendlier judge and under the auspices of being granted a more fair trial away from the emotion and media in the community where the crime was committed.

“It’s a huge disservice to the victims, the victims’ families and, I also believe, to the community, when an individual who has been charged with such a vicious crime is transferred to another venue,” Wamback insists.

But he admits the tactic sometimes backfires as legal teams find stricter judges in jurisdictions outside the Golden Horseshoe.

It’s alleged that Cyr, with help from two accomplices, shot 28-year old Nadia Gehl to death on a walking path in February of 2009. The arrests in the case were made several months later, following a lengthy undercover investigation by Waterloo Regional Police.

This is not the first high profile murder case to change venues in recent memory. Ontario Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney ruled earlier this year that the first degree murder trial of Michael Rafferty should be moved out of Woodstock.

Rafferty is charged in the abduction and murder of 8-year old Tori Stafford.

In ruling on the re-location, Heeney wrote “it is perhaps reasonable to presume that the local community, particularly where it is a small one, will have a strong emotional reaction to a crime of this nature.”

The Gehl trial is slated to start early next year.

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