Ottawa man sentenced to life for arson fire that killed 3-year-old Karima Moustapha

Saeed Mohamed set a gasoline fire in an Ottawa highrise in May 2024, killing a toddler and critically injuring her mother and sister. He received life in prison with no parole for 25 years.

Life sentence for Ottawa arsonist who killed toddler in highrise blaze

Saeed Mohamed has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years after setting a gasoline fire in an Ottawa residential highrise that killed three-year-old Karima Moustapha in 2024, Google News CA — Crime (EN) reports.

Mohamed poured a trail of gasoline along the third-floor hallway of a tower on Donald Street's east end at approximately 6 a.m. on May 2, 2024, set it alight, and fled. The fire and smoke forced 250 residents to a nearby community centre and sent eight people to hospital, among them a mother and her two young daughters.

Karima died of her injuries several days after the blaze. Her mother and sister were critically injured but survived. The mother suffers persistent nightmares about fire, escape, and harm to her children, Justice Anne London-Weinstein told court, recounting victim impact statements from an earlier hearing. She attends therapy but struggles to speak about that morning. Her surviving daughter cannot sleep alone, and both carry burn scars that are a constant reminder of the fire. The mother also feels isolated and withdrawn, saying people around her do not understand what she has been through.

A jury convicted Mohamed of first-degree murder and two counts of arson with disregard for human life causing bodily harm in May of this year. The murder conviction carried an automatic life sentence. On Friday, London-Weinstein imposed two additional 20-year sentences on the arson counts, to be served concurrently.

The fire caused an estimated $1.6 million in damage to the building. One resident who suffered smoke inhalation developed severe pneumonia and was treated in an intensive care unit for a week. A woman with six-year-old triplets was forced to relocate to a shelter.

London-Weinstein acknowledged that mental illness is a mitigating factor in criminal sentencing and can reduce an offender's moral culpability. Mohamed had stopped taking his anti-psychotic medication months before the fire. The judge nonetheless concluded that the need to protect the public outweighed those considerations in this case.

It was not Mohamed's first arson. In a strikingly similar incident in 2016, he lit a gasoline trail on a third-floor hallway of his Sandy Hill apartment building, causing roughly $25,000 in damage. No one was hurt or killed on that occasion. Following his conviction for arson with disregard for human life, Ontario Court Justice Mitch Hoffman warned Mohamed in 2018 that he was at risk of becoming a mass murderer and described the fear that neighbours would feel if they knew of his actions.

London-Weinstein called Hoffman's warning "hauntingly and terribly prophetic."

Mohamed has 30 days to decide whether to seek an appeal.

Source: Google News CA — Crime (EN)