On a day when the heartbroken family of slain filmmaker Reeyaz Habib poured out their pain and grief, the woman who helped the killer dump his body in the garbage had the nerve to ask for easier time.
Isabelle Nguyen, convicted of being an accessory after the fact and performing an indignity to a dead body, asked the court for a sentence of just two years less a day to be served at home — all so the 30-year-old accountant can avoid deportation to her native Vietnam.
Defence lawyer Tyler Smith acknowledged that a conditional sentence “might not be appropriate” normally, but told Superior Court Justice Ken Campbell that the Crown’s recommendation of a four- to six-year penitentiary sentence would have a “disproportionate impact” and effectively end Nguyen’s marriage to Khoa Tran, who is facing an automatic sentence of life in prison for second-degree murder.
Are we really supposed to feel sorry for this evil duo?
Circumstances of Habib’s death ‘disturbing:’ Friend
Court heard that the decomposing remains of the missing Habib, 53, were discovered by a garbage man in the underground trash compactor of his Liberty Village condo on June 8, 2023, two days after screams had been heard coming from his unit. Habib’s body had been concealed in towels and blankets and secured by duct tape with notes warning it was very heavy and not to open it because it contained glass and sharp materials.
“The terror and pain he must have felt in his last moments are bad enough to think about,” his friend Emma Fisher told the court. “But that someone would throw him out like garbage is even more disturbing, frankly disgusting.
“He was someone’s child. How can one person destroy and throw out someone’s child?”
And why? Over a dispute about a smelly barbecue?
His neighbours — Tran, a 36-year-old software developer, and Nguyen – were convicted in June by a jury that accepted the Crown’s theory that the film director had been slain over his complaints that fumes from the couple’s charcoal barbecue were wafting into his home from their townhouse below him.
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‘Callous and inhumane’ treatment of remains: Crown
An autopsy couldn’t establish a cause of death, but court heard that Habib had suffered 34 pre-death injuries when he was attacked in his home in the early morning hours of June 6, 2023. Disposing of his remains was “callous and inhumane,” said Crown attorney Nathaniel Smith, and court heard the couple spent the next few days covering up the crime so it would seem as if their neighbour had just left.
Smith urged the judge to set Tran’s parole eligibility at 18 years and to deny a conditional sentence to his wife. “She was complicit,” he told Campbell. “Collateral consequences cannot be used to impose an unfit sentence.”
Seated in different prisoner boxes and separated by a court officer, Tran and Nguyen displayed not an ounce of emotion as family and friends expressed their continuing grief at the inexplicable loss of their talented, loving and generous Habib.
They all spoke of a remarkable man: After a successful career as a world-travelling investment banker, he volunteered at orphanages in India for a year and then pursued his passion for storytelling by getting a film degree in California. He moved back to Canada after his graduation, but his filmmaking plans were paused while he spent two years in Calgary caring for his dying father.
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‘Shattered an entire family’
Back in Toronto, Habib, the alumnus of the Canadian Film Centre, was just finishing his first feature, Fat Lady Sriracha , when his life was cruelly cut short.
“I cannot understand how a human life could be treated this way,” wrote his younger sister Salima. “How does a person like Reeyaz … a person who’s life was dedicated to learning, creating, teaching, caring for his family and giving back … have his life taken from him in this way?”
She struggled to express the impact of his death in addressing the court. “I walk through life with a pulverized heart,” she wrote. “I ache for my mother, I ache for my daughter, I ache for myself.”
Court heard her daughter Bianca was just 11 when she lost her uncle, who was described as her mentor, her tennis partner, her biggest supporter.
“One act of violence didn’t just end one life, it shattered an entire family,” she said. “My uncle taught me how to read, how to ride a bike, how to play tennis and how to believe in myself.
“The one lesson he never got a chance to teach me was how to live without him.”
Campbell is expected to sentence the couple next month.
mmandel@postmedia.com