The Utah Court of Appeals has ruled that a murder conviction against Karrar Thaer Suhail should stand. A jury found Suhail guilty of murder in a 2019 trial.
SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Court of Appeals has upheld a 2019 guilty verdict in a, saying the circumstantial evidence connecting him to the crime is strong.
According to testimony in court from Suhail's ex-girlfriend, they drove past the victim's apartment the day the body was found and Suhail asked her if she "would keep in contact with him if he were to get locked up for 25 years," and asked something like, "Do you think I would do that?" Suhail's attorney, Rudy Bautista, called this information "an ambush" and "a due process violation" and later asked for a mistrial, which was denied.
In the appeal, Suhail argued Bautista should have presented the neighbor's shoe size and did not. Bautista said in an affidavit he "got distracted during trial" and failed to present that evidence. "There's reason to think that in the actual trial, size testimony didn't matter much," the court of appeals determined, noting that the technician said she was not confident about the size and gave a weak testimony.
Suhail had no money prior to Alkhatawi's death, and had borrowed money to purchase a pill from him, but after the death he made several cash purchases and gave money to his ex-girlfriend and gifts to their child.
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