A man accused of second-degree murder after a fatal stabbing at a South Vancouver nightclub is heading toward a trial.
Mohammed Cortes Torres, 26, was arrested and charged on April 30 in the 2022 murder of Naseb Fazil, 19.
Fazil had been involved in a fight outside Marpole’s Gallery nightclub, near SW Marine Drive and Hudson Street, in the early hours of May 23, 2022.
Vancouver police officers found him alive but suffering stab wounds when they arrived. He later died in hospital from his injuries.
The 274-day-old case was before Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Jennifer Oulton Jan. 30.
There, defence lawyer Jason Hemmerling asked Oulton for the case to be adjourned to Sept. 7 for the start of a preliminary hearing. Cortes Torres appeared by video from North Fraser Pretrial Centre.
Such hearings are held to determine if enough evidence exists to go to trial. Those hearings are covered by a publication ban so as not to taint a possible jury pool.
Hemmerling said Cortes Torres had sought bail but there were issues with travel documents. Crown prosecutor Jayde Niefer told Oulton he had also sought bail in B.C. Supreme Court but it was not granted.
Naseb Fazil
Fazil had graduated from Burnaby Central Secondary the previous year and was working in construction. On the night he was killed, he had given his father a present: a bottle of cologne, bought with one of his first paycheques.
Fazil and his siblings came to Canada from war-torn Afghanistan nearly 12 years ago. His father, Nazi Fazil, told the Burnaby Now last spring that he's waiting for Canadian justice to show him that decision wasn't a tragic mistake.
"What I was want from the government of Canada? I didn’t want anything from them, only my child’s safety,” his father said. “That’s why I escape my country, that’s why I leave everything behind. Only I have to save my kids.”
Police said Cortes Torres was a Surrey resident at the time of the homicide, and police believe he was more recently staying on Vancouver Island.
With files from Cornelia Naylor
