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There is enough evidence for a jury to weigh in the case of a Calgary murder suspect, a judge ruled Friday in ordering the accused to stand trial.
Justice Lloyd Robertson agreed with Crown prosecutor Adam May that the low bar required for a committal to stand trial had been met.
Defence counsel Noel O’Brien had argued that the case against his client, Kai Errol Horst Keller, should be dismissed by the Calgary Court of Justice judge.
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But Keller didn’t have the same success he had earlier this year when a different judge ruled on March 12, that there was insufficient evidence to order him to stand trial on a charge of attempted murder and recklessly discharging a firearm in connection with an Aug. 2, 2022, shooting in the parkade underneath the Real Canadian Superstore in East Village.
Robertson said Keller would have to stand trial before a Court of King’s Bench jury on a charge of first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Ashley Mawdsley.
Mawdsley, 40, was gunned down shortly after 8 a.m. on Dec. 15, 2022, mere blocks from an elementary school.
About an hour after the shooting, Mounties discovered a burned-out SUV south of the city in Foothills County which matched a vehicle suspected in the shooting.
Douglasdale Elementary school is across the street from the entrance to the cul-de-sac where Mawdsley lived.
On May 7, Robertson agreed to reopen Keller’s preliminary inquiry to hear further evidence, despite counsel making submissions on the case in January.
At the time O’Brien, who has been practising since 1977, said it was rare to reopen a preliminary inquiry and he’d never been involved in such a proceeding, but said it was necessary “for a fair and proper inquiry.”
At the beginning of Keller’s preliminary inquiry last November, Robertson imposed a publication ban on all the evidence at O’Brien’s request.
Keller, who remains in custody, is due in Court of King’s Bench on July 19.
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