A Nova Scotia judge imposed a publication ban Friday on testimony for the sentencing hearing of a 16-year-old boy who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the stabbing death of a Halifax high school student.
The offender, whose identity is protected from publication, was one of four teens charged in the death of 16-year-old Ahmad Maher Al Marrach on April 22, 2024, at a Halifax mall parking garage. The accused was 14 at the time of the stabbing; he pleaded guilty in January.
At the request of the defence, Judge Bronwyn Duffy imposed a publication ban on the testimony of three witnesses in provincial youth court. The ban applies to details about the teen’s mental health, family history and on information he provided to the witnesses in a clinical setting.
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The witnesses are a psychologist who assessed the teenager; a psychologist who was consulted for the assessment; and a forensic social worker who authored the teen’s rehabilitative treatment plan.
Duffy said releasing the information from the testimony would increase stigma against the accused and make his rehabilitation more difficult.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled for two more days, on Sept. 12 and Oct. 3.
According to an agreed statement of facts, four teens met at a downtown Halifax shopping mall where the teenager who would eventually stab Al Marrach stole a large kitchen knife from a discount store in anticipation of joining a fight with the victim. The four teens took a bus to a parkade in the city’s west end, where the fight began. Al Marrach died after the teenager plunged his knife into the centre of Al Marrach’s chest.
On Tuesday, a 17-year-old boy was convicted of manslaughter in the case. The teen’s weeklong sentencing hearing starts Oct. 20.
A teenage girl and a teenage boy have pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The girl was sentenced in April to three months in a youth detention centre; the boy is to be sentenced Aug. 1.
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