Zameer case proves why trials matter

There may be 1,001 good reasons for not granting bail.

- ROSIE DIMANNO

But the case of Umar Zameer wasn’t one of them.

That much has become increasingly obvious as the first-degree murder trial for the Brampton accountant is unfolding.

We still don’t know why Superior Court Judge Jill Copeland made the highly unusual decision last September to release Zameer on bail pending this trial. That determination — the reasons for it — remain under a publication ban.

Copeland subsequently ruled against allowing even a partial lifting when asked to do so in December by Zameer’s defence lawyer. What Nader Hasan told the court on that occasion: “It’s an application being brought to protect, in essence to salvage, the fair trial rights of my client.”

From left, Umar Zameer, defence lawyers Alexandra Heine and Nader Hasan, and Crown attorney Karen Simone as Justice Anne Molloy and jury members look on in Zameer’s trial for first-degree murder in the death of Toronto police Const. Jeffrey Northrup. When Zameer was released on bail last year, the decision was widely denounced. But the trial evidence so far gives reasonable buttress to that decision, writes Rosie DiManno.

There was urgent cause, Hasan contended, to adjust the narrative that had taken hold with the public about a man accused of killing a cop, a story arc, he said, based on disinformation and lack of information that was playing out on unhinged social media. But also, with only slightly more restrained commentary, from elected officials and policing officials.