Lawyers for Ibrahim Ali seek to bar the victim's father from post-trial hearings over an unproven gun allegation

On Wednesday, in a Vancouver courtroom built for the Air India terrorism trial and walled off from the public gallery by bulletproof glass, a judge heard a dispute over whether a murdered girl's father should be allowed to listen to the next stage of the case against her killer. The man cannot be named, because a publication ban protects the identity of his daughter, who was 13 when she died.

The backdrop is an allegation that has not been proven in court. His own lawyer, Brock Martland, told the BC Supreme Court that the father is under police investigation over an allegation that he had a firearm in the courthouse in December. He has not been charged. Ibrahim Ali was convicted of first-degree murder on Dec. 8. The girl's body was found in a Burnaby park in July 2017.

Ali's lawyers say they were told much more. Kevin McCullough said in an interview last month that Victoria Police contacted him two days after the verdict and said the father had brought a loaded Glock to court with an "intent to kill." McCullough and co-counsel Ben Lynskey now refuse to appear in court for post-trial proceedings, citing their safety. They want the father excluded from attending in any way, and they object to a Mandarin interpreter translating for him.

The paper trail is partial. Police seized items from the man on Dec. 9, the day after the verdict, and court documents show he is due in Surrey Provincial Court next month over what happens to them. A spokeswoman for the BC Prosecution Service said he also faces a prohibition order, a Criminal Code measure that can bar a person from possessing firearms, crossbows, restricted or prohibited weapons, ammunition and explosives. An email from Vancouver Police to Ali's lawyers dated Dec. 11 said the father was under a no-contact undertaking with them and "must not enter" the vicinity of the Supreme Court in Vancouver. It told them to call 911 immediately if he breached it. Martland said the undertaking also restricts his client from the courthouse and several blocks around it. Vancouver Police confirmed on Dec. 12 that a man had been arrested and that an investigation into allegations of a weapon in the Law Courts during the trial was underway.

Martland said his client wants only "a narrow form of involvement." He is not asking to sit in the courtroom, but to have an interpreter on the phone relay what is said, along with access to materials in the application. If the defence believed the undertaking had been breached, Martland suggested, they should call police, as the department's own email advised. Crown lawyer Daniel Porte told the judge the Crown supported the father's request for standing.

Tim Russell, sent by Lynskey and McCullough to argue the application, took the opposite view. The question, he said, is whether his colleagues' fears are reasonable. "To have a target on your back and realize you were a coin toss away from having shots fired would instil the most reasonable fear in anyone," he said, adding that anyone in the courtroom on Dec. 8 was also a victim. The defence, he said, does not want to undermine open courts but wants Ali to have a fair trial with counsel who can speak "without fear, without intimidation, without distraction." On this application, Russell argued, the father stands in the position of the accused, and his status as the victim's parent has no bearing.

Justice Lance Bernard granted the father standing on Wednesday. He has not yet ruled on the broader request to keep him from listening. Ali, who appeared by video, has not been sentenced and faces a mandatory life term with no parole eligibility for 25 years. The father's son did not immediately respond to a voice mail seeking comment.

Two things to watch: Justice Bernard's ruling on whether the father may follow the post-trial hearings, and the Surrey court date next month over the seized items.