SASKATOON – Somalia national and U. S. permanent resident Afrah Ahmed Abdi – who has just been convicted of killing a Saskatoon man – had fled from Canada to the United States with a fellow Somalia national and high-ranking Brothers Keepers gang member.
On Dec. 14, a Saskatoon Court of King’s Bench jury found Abdi guilty of second-degree murder in the August 2020 death of 30-year-old Logan Nayneecassum. It carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for at least 10 years.
Saskatoon Senior Crown Prosecutor Michael Pilon confirmed with SASKTODAY.ca in an email on Monday that arguments for when Abdi will be eligible for parole will be heard on Jan. 26, 2024.
Not long after Nayneecassum’s murder, Saskatoon Police Service issued a Canada-wide warrant for Afrah Abdi’s arrest, who was known at the time as Afrah Ali, but it would be five months before he would be apprehended.
Abdi, along with Somalia national and Canadian permanent resident Naseem Ali Mohammed, and Jamaican national Christopher White, entered the U. S. illegally from Canada on Jan. 23, 2021, and were arrested in Montana following a high-speed 122-kilometre car chase with speeds reaching up to 209 km/hr. The U. S. Department of Justice identified Afrah Abdi, of Virginia, as Afrah Ali through fingerprints, according to U. S. court documents
When the three were arrested, Mohammed gave the name Bati Ahmed and was released hours after his arrest following a criminal check that didn’t show that he was wanted. U. S. authorities, however, later learned about his ties to Brothers Keepers gang in Canada and that he was wanted in British Columbia and Ontario.
About a week later, the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office and U. S. Customs and Border Patrol released photos of 22-year-old Naseem Ali Saleh Mohammed and said that he was wanted.
A month later, U. S. Border Patrol Agents filed an affidavit saying that Mohamed was a "high-ranking member of the Brothers Keepers gang" and a "most wanted" fugitive in Surrey, B.C., who had been "on the run" since February of 2020, CBC Vancouver reported. The affidavit went on to say that Mohammed was the RCMP's "primary suspect in multiple gang-related homicides" in two provinces.
The Brothers Keepers were in a gang war with rivals Red Scorpion-Kang group and the United Nations, according to CBC Vancouver.
“The Brothers Keepers were hired by the Edmonton Hells Angels to bring violence to Surrey after they killed (a woman) and kicked Redd Alert to the curb,” claims Gangsters Out blog that specializes in, and writes about, organized crime, adding that they also hired the Driftwood Crips to keep the Brothers Keepers in line.
Mohammed arrested, finally
Mohammed was arrested near Seattle in November 2021 during an armed robbery at a hookah lounge, said the U. S. Border Services.
In April 2022, he was sentenced to 41 months in jail after pleading guilty to first-degree robbery, according to the U. S. District Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana in a media release.
White and the driver sentenced
White, who had fled Canada with Abdi and Mohammed, and Rastesfaye Neil, the driver who tried helping the three escape, pleaded guilty.
In August 2021, White was sentenced to two years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for illegal entry to the U. S., according to a media release by the U. S. District Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana.
White, who was 45 at the time, went by aliases of Gregory White, Jahnyi Foster and Raymond White.
White, a Jamaican national, was removed from the United States in March 2020 through New York and sent back to Canada, said the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Montana in a media release.
White didn’t have permission from Department of Homeland Security to re-enter the United States when he entered illegally in January 2021 with Abdi and Mohammed.
Neil, who took police on the high-speed chase trying to help Abdi, White, and Mohammed escape, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in August 2021 to two years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, said the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Montana in a media release.
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