At the honour-killing trial

In the Shafia honour-killing trial, it has already been established that the suspects used Google to try to find a suitable place to commit a murder, but yesterday more details about their Googling emerged:

While prosecutor Laurie Lacelle in her opening address to jurors told them that the “where to commit a murder” search on Mr. Shafia’s laptop took place 10 days before the four women were found dead, it wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that Kingston Constable Derek Frawley, who was qualified as an expert in forensic computer analysis, took the witness stand.

Only with his evidence was it apparent how big and broad was the presumed search for a suitable site.

For six days that June, someone used the laptop to search for bodies of water in Quebec, for “mountains on water,” for “where to rent a boat in Montreal,” for a list of crossings on the St. Lawrence and other rivers in the province.

The searches were all conducted in English, and prosecutors allege it was Hamed, the most fluent English speaker of the three, who conducted most of them.

The Google searches, Const. Frawley said, kicked off in earnest on June 3, when several were performed, the keywords as follows: “Montreal jail”; “Can a prisoner have control over his real estate”; “Montreal jail” again; “Can a prisoner have control over their real estate” and “Can a prisoner have rights to sell his real estate.”