For brutally beating a fellow inmate to death, Ali Ngarukiye was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years. The young killer is not done with the law: he could be declared a dangerous offender for attempting to kill a Montreal police officer.
André Lapierre was not a career criminal. He was a 57-year-old man who fought courageously to overcome his drug addiction. A humble and funny man, according to his loved ones. In June 2021, he ended up in the Rivière-des-Prairies prison for failing a simple drug test, reported The Press at the time.
Read Patrick Lagacé’s column “Why did André Lapierre die?”
He had the misfortune of sharing a cell with Ali Ngarukiye. The latter was awaiting trial for attempting to kill Montreal police officer Sanjay Vi. A case known as the “Camara affair”, since a motorist had been wrongly accused. The 21-year-old man had been radicalized in Ontario and wanted to fight in an “Islamic war”.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY FAMILY
André Lapierre
André Lapierre was afraid of his roommate. He was right to be. Angry about an alleged theft of clothes, Ali Ngarukiye beat André Lapierre to death. He was defenseless, trapped in a small cell. His injuries were comparable to those of a pedestrian run over by a car. Unheard of according to the pathologist.
Even more disturbing: Ali Ngarukiye wrote a sentence in Bic pen on the victim’s thigh. “You can’t make an image of a living thing,” it read, in English. On the other thigh, the deceased had a tattoo of a naked woman.
After the murder, Ali Ngarukiye kept telling correctional officers that Lapierre was the “devil.” According to the defence expert, Ngarukiye was suffering from schizophrenia at the time of the murder. A theory rejected by the Crown expert. If Ngarukiye was in psychosis at the time of the attack, it was probably due to cannabis use.
In any case, the jury rejected the mental disorder defence and convicted Ali Ngarukiye of second-degree murder last May. He therefore received an automatic life sentence. Crown prosecutor Me Jean-François Roy, requested a period of ineligibility for conditional release of 20 years, compared to 10 years for the defense, represented by Mr.e Sharon Sandiford.
On June 18, Judge Myriam Lachance ruled by imposing a 15-year inadmissibility period.
In another case, Ali Ngarukiye is still awaiting sentencing for the attempted murder of police officer Vig. He was convicted last December, but the process had been put on hold.
Last week, the Crown requested that Ali Ngarukiye be assessed for a long-term offender or dangerous offender status. He could theoretically be sentenced to an indeterminate sentence.
The case will return to court next August.