‘I feel I have died’: Mother whose son was killed recounts unbearable year of grief – Halifax | Globalnews.ca
One hour after the first of four youths was handed a manslaughter sentence in connection to the death of 16-year-old Ahmad Al Marrach, his mother, Basima Al Jaji recounted how “unbearable” the last year has been for their family.
“Everything nice was in Ahmad,” Al Jaji said during an exclusive interview at the Halifax provincial courthouse on Thursday with the help of an interpreter. “I am not saying this because I’m his mom. But this is how Ahmad was. I cannot accept what has happened.”
Ahmad was a Grade 10 student in Halifax who had come to Canada with his family from Syria in 2016. In April 2024, he was attacked and stabbed in a parking garage next to the Halifax Shopping Centre and later died in hospital.
Four youths were eventually charged in connection with his death.
During victim impact statements in January, Al Jaji told the courtroom that Ahmad was a kind, compassionate boy who loved to please people around him.
Al Jaji said that her son had helped her raise his younger siblings — bathing them, dressing them, feeding them, putting them to sleep and caring for them when they were sick.
In January, Al Jaji told the courtroom that Ahmad’s younger siblings still asked when he would come home.
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She said he would often take his siblings outside to play and bring them home little gifts after he got off school.
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“He never came home empty-handed,” Al Jaji said in her statement. “He always brought something for his siblings. He used to come into the kitchen and ask me, ‘Mama, do you need help?’”
After fleeing the war in Syria for a better life, Al Jaji told Global News the irony of Ahmad’s death is extremely difficult.
“I came with my children here and with my family, thinking that Canada is a secure place for a new start,” Al Jaji said. “No one can feel what I’m going through. I feel that I have died with my son.”
Ahmad Al Marrach died following a four-on-one attack at the Halifax Shopping Centre parking lot on April 22, 2024.
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A 14-year-old girl who pled guilty to manslaughter in connection to Ahmad’s death was given three more months in custody, followed by 24 months of rehabilitation in community, as part of the Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision program, otherwise known as IRCS.
She had been in custody since shortly after the incident in April 2024.
To qualify for IRCS, Judge Mark Heerema told the courtroom, the individual in question must be a youth with a known history of mental health struggles. He explained that although some may view the girl’s sentence as too lenient, it improves her prospects for successful reintegration into society.
But Al Jaji pointed out her son had life experiences too that could have affected his mental health.
“When we left Syria, Ahmad was injured in his shoulder from a bomb. And he had seen his niece dying in front of his own eyes,” Al Jaji said, adding that the family lived under war for two and a half years.
“I am saying what Ahmad went through, because I’m comparing between the kind of things Ahmad had went through, and the kind of things that they were saying (…) the girl had went through – her childhood.”
Al Jaji said Ahmad should have been negatively impacted growing up during the war and witnessing atrocities each day. But if he did struggle, he never showed it. He always put his family first, she said.
Al Jaji said Ahmad was so loved by everybody because he “had a kind heart.”
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In her victim impact statement, she recalled Ahmad bringing her a bouquet of flowers just two days before he was killed.
“I asked him, ‘Ahmad, why did you buy these?’ He said, ‘Mama, aren’t you sick?’ He gave his siblings a flower each and was very happy that he gave everyone something,” she told the courtroom.
To this day, Al Jaji said she still wakes up in the middle of the night to check on her six children. She watches them sleep, tucked safely in their beds — but then it dawns on her that Ahmad isn’t there.
“I need justice for Ahmad,” Al Jaji said. “I need the government; I need the people who are responsible to feel.”
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