A trial is underway for an Oliver man accused of punching a transient worker from Quebec in the face leading to brain injuries.
Afshin Maleki Ighani, 44, is on trial for one count of aggravated assault after an altercation between himself and Quebec man Bruce Peter Landry on April 19, 2015.
Landry, who currently operates an asphalt company in Montreal, took the stand Wednesday in Penticton Provincial Court. He was in Oliver in April 2015 for a working vacation, arriving a month earlier and expecting to find work picking cherries.
Landry said he was with some of his friends in the parking lot at Lion’s Park when he saw Ighani, who Landry testified was in a “staring contest” with him and acting suspicious, looking inside Landry’s vehicle and walking near other vehicles. After Landry rolled up his windows and locked his doors, he testified, Ighani leaned on his fairly new Dodge Ram, playing with the side view mirror.
“I told him ‘can you stop touching my truck please,’ and I said please,” Landry said.
Landry alleged that Ighani had a profanity-laced response, and the confrontation began to escalate as Ighani became “more aggressive.”
“It was basically a loop of him calling me names and me telling him to go for about a 10-minute duration of yelling,” Landry said.
Landry alleged that the argument eventually got to the point where Ighani attempted to grab and choke him. Landry said after pushing Ighani off, he turned to point at the park telling Ighani to leave.
“When I was not looking, that’s when he punched me,” Landry said.
After that, Landry testified, there are only flashes of memory prior to him waking up in the Penticton Regional Hospital three days later. A brief recollection of his short stay in the hospital in Oliver and some memories of giving police a statement.
He said he suffered from a brain haemorrhage and skull fracture. Landry also testified that he has suffered from short-term memory loss, loss of smell, loss of taste and the brain injuries have even affected his voice as a singer.
Const. Kuljit Singh of the Oliver RCMP was the first of an expected eight Crown witnesses to take the stand over the three-day trial.
Singh arrived on scene at Lion’s Park in Oliver around 5 p.m. on the day in question to find Landry on the ground surrounded by medical first responders. Singh testified that he had seen Landry attempt to stand up at that point, but he fell back down to the ground.
A witness, who was a friend of Landry’s, described the man who had committed the alleged assault noting his black bicycle and tattoos. Singh located Ighani nearby on the hiking trail near the park, approximately 200 meters away.
Singh said he recognized Ighani from an estimated 50 previous encounters. Singh testified under cross examination by Ighani’s defence counsel that Ighani did not run or attempt to flee when Singh approached. Dr. Lance Shepherd, one of Landry’s treating physicians, said the skull fracture on the back of Landry’s head was likely not from the alleged punch Ighani threw, but is more consistent with a person falling to the ground and striking a hard surface.
The trial is expected to conclude Friday.