The Crown lawyer said the motorist fled the scene without stopping to assist
The driver of a Mercedes sedan that struck and killed a woman in a southeast crosswalk could not have avoided the fatal collision, a prosecutor conceded Monday.
But in her opening address at the Calgary Court of Justice trial of Hani Salama, Crown lawyer Alexandra Russell said the motorist fled the scene without stopping to assist.
Russell told Justice Jim Sawa the only issue for him to decide is whether Salama, 45, was behind the wheel when his car struck and killed Alok Akot, 27, shortly before 8 p.m. on Oct. 27, 2022, before fleeing the scene.
“The collision was unavoidable given her location in the crosswalk and the obstructed view of the driver,” Russell said, before presenting a statement of facts agreed on by both Salama and his lawyer, Tariq Salloum.
The prosecutor also played chilling CCTV video of the collision which left Akot’s mother moaning in the front row of the courtroom gallery, consoled by the victim’s father with a gentle touch of her shoulder.
The video showed Akot crossing the westbound lanes of 17th Avenue S.E. at 44th Street after exiting a bus rapid transit station and being thrown through the air after being struck before the car that hit her continued without slowing down.
“The driver would not have had time to avoid Ms. Akot,” Russell said in her opening statement.
“The driver fled the scene.”
Salama is charged with fleeing the scene of a fatal crash, an offence which carries a maximum punishment of life behind bars.
According to the agreed facts, read into the record by Russell, Salama was the registered owner of the Mercedes involved in the collision between Oct. 14, 2020, and Oct. 31, 2022, four days after the incident, when he transferred ownership to his father.
Russell told Sawa that Akot began walking across 17th Avenue “in the standard white crosswalk lines.
“At the time she began to walk, the don’t walk signal was illuminated,” she said.
“The Mercedes struck Akot as she walked through the intersection in the crosswalk.”
The CCTV video showed a vehicle stopped at the intersection waiting to turn left, which would have blocked the view of Akot as she walked north.
Salama is no stranger to the legal system, including for driving offences.
An Alberta Court of Appeal decision in 2018 upheld a 69-month sentence for two sets of charges involving incidents in June 2014.
In the first incident, Salama robbed a 7-Eleven store and six days later, after his release from custody, he broke into a home and stole more than $10,000 in property before fleeing an attempted arrest by police in a stolen Mazda.
During that flight Salama crashed into another vehicle before continuing to drive dangerously through the Beltline and downtown areas of Calgary, driving on a sidewalk, running red lights and driving into oncoming traffic.