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A jury has convicted two men of murder in a deadly 2021 shooting at an Edmonton community league hall, rejecting claims that one of the gunmen was too drunk to remember the execution-style killing.

A jury on Friday found Abdullahi Yalahow and Christopher Wilson guilty of second-degree murder for the death of Hamza Mohamed, who Wilson repeatedly shot in the head from point blank range at the Duggan Community League hall Aug. 29, 2021.

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Jurors were sequestered just before 1 p.m. Thursday and reached a decision by early Friday morning.

During the trial, presided over by Court of King’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil, the Crown showed disturbing CCTV video, including images of Wilson firing three shots into Mohamed’s head as he stood over the wounded man. He then pistol whipped the body more than a dozen times.

The Crown argued what happened at Duggan Community Hall that night was a plot that ended with Mohamed being “executed.”

The defence claimed the shooting was a fight that got out of hand, with one accused acting in self-defence and the other so drunk he could not have meant to shoot the victim.

The shooting broke out just before 4 a.m. at a “’90s badness” party at the hall. The Crown said a third man — set to go to trial on manslaughter charges early next year — began by firing at Mohamed, who tried to flee the hall and was hit in the back, causing him to collapse to the floor.

Yalahow then looped around and tried to shoot the wounded victim, but was himself shot after a security guard knocked away his gun and Mohamed fired his own pistol.

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Wilson then disarmed Mohamed and called out to Yalahow, who lay wounded in the hallway. Yalahow cried out “Yo! Hit him! Grease him!” just prior to the shooting.

‘Hit him, grease him’

Wilson testified that while he recalled drinking nine beers, multiple shots and 24 ounces of Hennessy, he blacked out and had no memory of what occurred that night between buying a snack for his friends and waking up in a police cell.

Yalahow’s lawyer, Zachary Al-Khatib, asked the jury to consider the exact meaning of the words “hit him, grease him,” asking them to consider lesser firearms charges instead.

Even if the words were an instruction, Al-Khatib said, Wilson was likely already pulling the trigger, telling jurors the first shot came “one-tenth of a second after Mr. Yalahow yells.”

Both defence lawyers also raised the prospect the accused men might have been acting in self-defence. They characterized the shooting — which injured six others — as a fight that spiralled out of control rather than an assassination plot.

Crown prosecutors Julie Snowdon and Thomas O’Leary argued otherwise. They said Wilson, Yalahow and their associates were only people in the CCTV footage who appear calm when the gunfire broke out, suggesting they knew what would happen in advance.

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CCTV captured Yalahow leaving the hall just before the shooting, re-entering without going through security and giving an associate a thumbs up, O’Leary said.

Wilson, meanwhile, was seen throughout performing complex tasks with good co-ordination and balance. He even picked up a phone that had been used to call 911 and misled the operator by telling them some “Jamaican guys” had been doing the shooting.

O’Leary also noted testimony from an expert who said that even if someone is too drunk to remember something, that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of intending their actions at the time.

Yalahow and Wilson are in custody and will likely be sentenced in the spring. Second-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for at least 10 years.

— With files from Jonny Wakefield

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