Refugee's trauma merits leniency - defence
Exposure to warzone horrors, racism amount to exceptional circumstances to spare Mahamat Yaya, 19, of Fredericton, from prison sentence for robbery, his counsel argues
Mahamat Yaya terrorized an elderly Fredericton couple when he used what looked like a handgun to rob them dressed “ninja-style” and should go to prison, the Crown argued Friday.
But the defence offered a sympathetic portrait of a young African refugee broken by the horrors of war and dropped in a strange land where cultural and language barriers isolated him from those around him.
Yaya, 19, of Brunswick Street, appeared in Fredericton provincial court in custody and in person Friday for a sentencing hearing on numerous charges.
The most serious of the crimes for which he’s to be sentenced was robbing Carl and Rose McLeod at their home Jan. 5, 2023, while armed with what turned out to be an Airsoft BB gun.