British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Heather MacNaughton has sentenced Baghdad-born Ali Rafid Khudh Khudhair to 12 years in prison. The 26-year-old man killed a sex worker in her own home, just two months after he robbed a private poker game in Burnaby, BC.
Khudhair, who fled from both Iraq and Syria and is now a permanent resident of Canada, arranged to meet the sex worker at her home. As the judge wrote of the May 2021 tragedy, however, Khudhair wasn’t looking for a sexual encounter with a woman. He’d come:
to rob or otherwise take advantage of her.”
Instead, Khudhair got into an altercation with the woman’s boyfriend. As the pair chased the armed man out of their apartment, Khudhair fired a single shot that would lead to the woman’s death later that night. In a victim statement, the boyfriend said the woman’s death was “about the darkest and most bitter experience” of his life.
Another victim statement about a different crime committed by Kudhair in March 2021 has a similar ring to it. Part of Khudhair’s jail sentence came from the armed robbery of a private poker game held in a Burnaby condo, three months before the fatal shooting. Khudhair stole over $10,000 in cash.
The poker game host, who escaped by knifing Khudhair in the face according to CTV News Vancouver, said the events of that night “have haunted him every day since,” and that he is always on his guard.