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All the evidence in an Edmonton man’s trial points to one logical conclusion, a prosecutor said Tuesday: The defendant committed a violent burglary on a rural property south of Calgary.
Crown attorney Joe Mercier, in his closing submissions to Judge Chris Rickards, said Armin Babic was virtually caught red-handed following the crime at Gavin McLachlin’s home west of De Winton on the morning of 19 November 2019.
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“Mr. Babic committed all the crimes of which he is accused,” Mercier said at the Calgary King’s Court hearing, shortly after the accused decided not to present any evidence in his defense.
“All of the evidence, from beginning to end, supports that Mr. Babic worked alone, committed this crime, and was arrested shortly thereafter.”
Mercier noted that McLachlin and his sister, Heather Haddad, who was visiting the home at the time, were able to free themselves from their restraints after being tied up by the bandit and quickly called police.
He said armed police were quickly able to establish a corridor and within 20 to 30 minutes they stopped Babic driving a pickup truck that matched the perpetrator’s vehicle on Macleod Trail heading toward Calgary.
Mercier said the defendant was arrested “a short distance away and in a short time.”
A search of the van after Babic’s arrest on an outstanding traffic warrant uncovered two guns, a rope similar to the one used to restrain the victims, jewelry and a Rolex watch belonging to McLachlin and more than $23,000 stolen in the robbery. the prosecutor said.
One of the guns, a .22 caliber, matched a shell casing left at the scene when the robber fired a warning shot into McLachlin’s couch. A bullet found on the couch was a .22 caliber.
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More telling was that DNA on the cuff of a jacket found in the truck matched the victim’s genetic profile, Mercier said.
“Mr. McLachlin had never met Mr. Babic before, never seen him,” he said.
“How did Mr. McLachlin’s DNA get on a jacket in Mr. Babic’s truck?”
McLachlin was detained at gunpoint after an individual wearing a vest with the word “police” emblazoned on the front arrived at his home and demanded access to his safe before tying up the victims.
The bandit took the contents of the safe before McLachlin and his sister could untie themselves.
Before Mercier’s closing arguments, Babic, who is representing himself, argued for a directed acquittal based on the premise that there was no evidence for the judge to weigh.
He said the officers should not have stopped him because Haddad told them the perpetrator was East Indian or Middle Eastern with dark skin.
“I’m not East Indian or Middle Eastern. I’m Caucasian, white,” Babic said, before Rickards dismissed his request.
The judge will hear arguments in Babic’s trial on Wednesday.
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