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COVERAGE WEDNESDAY MARCH 16, 2016
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LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS
‘I want to sit outside the Parliament’
Father just wants one extra room for his son By Jennifer Moreau
jmoreau@burnabynow.com
An amber cockroach scurries across the wall in Mohanad Al-Ani’s one bedroom Burnaby apartment, where he lives with his wife and two sons. The 39-year-old father shrugs it off. What can he do? There are rats, too, he says, speaking through an interpreter. But they seem to be the least of his worries. Al-Ani just wants a new home so one of his sons can have his own room, and the desperate father is at his wits’ end. “I want to sit outside the Parliament so the Prime Minister knows my case,” he says. “Maybe he will find me a solution.” Al-Ani’s problem is housing. He shares a single bedroom in an Edmonds apartment complex with his two kids, 8 and 9, and his expecting wife.The four of them came from Iraq to Canada in 2014 as government-sponsored refugees.That means they get government help, equivalent to welfare rates, for the first year they are here. After that, they’re on their own. Al-Ani is on disability for a slipped disc, and he can’t afford a bigger place. He doesn’t want a house, he doesn’t even want enough rooms for each of his children, even though the four all share a bedroom. He just wants one extra room for his oldest son, who was traumatized when militia men raided his home in Iraq and took Al-Ani away to one of the infamous secret prisons Continued on page 8
CRAMPED QUARTERS: Mohanad Al-Ani sleeps with his wife and two children in a one-bedroom cockroach-infested apartment in Burnaby’s Edmonds area. With another child on the way, he’s desperate to get into B.C. Housing. PHOTO JENNIFER MOREAU
FATAL ACCIDENT
Two crash suspects found in Creston hotel
By Jeremy Deutsch
jdeutsch@burnabynow.com
The two suspects in a fatal hit-and-run in Burnaby last week have been arrested in Creston. On Monday, RCMP in Creston confirmed that an 18-year-old woman and a
25-year-old man were arrested in the eastern B.C. town in connection with the fatal crash. According to RCMP, just after 9 a.m. Sunday morning, officers were called after two suspicious people tried to book a room in a hotel. Police were told by ho-
tel staff that two people had checked in earlier at around 1:30 a.m., noting they were bloodied and claimed to have been involved in singlevehicle collision. An officer spoke to the two people and suspected they had provided false names.
While questioning the man and woman at the hotel, the officer recalled a police bulletin distributed earlier regarding the two suspects involved in the Burnaby fatal hit-and-run from March 9, a press release noted. The RCMP officer even-
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tually concluded the two people were the alleged suspects wanted in the crash, and they were arrested later at a different hotel. The two were also wanted on outstanding warrants but didn’t say what they were. The man and woman were taken into custo-
dy without incident but as of Tuesday had yet to be charged. RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said Burnaby RCMP investigators have been called out to aid in what are now two investigations. Burnaby Mounties will be Continued on page 4
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