A 25-year-old man who hit an Ottawa cab driver in the back of the head with a metal rod and kicked him repeatedly as he lay unconscious was found guilty of aggravated assault Friday.
Walid Saraj, 25, and another man, Bradley Bell, attacked cab driver Abdinsaq Abdullahi on July 17, 2009, on Gladstone Avenue. The pair had been picked up near the Rideau Centre. Three witnesses testified they saw Saraj hit the cab driver in the head with the metal bar before Bell punched him in the face. The driver was then kicked repeatedly.
Abdullahi received serious head and facial injuries and remembers nothing of the attack.
Saraj and Bell turned themselves in to police after officers recognized them from photographs taken with cameras installed inside the taxi.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith rejected Saraj's claims at trial that the cab driver had come after him with the metal bar.
Bell pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm in March and was sentenced to a little more than a year in jail and two years probation.
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