Ibrahim Ali trial: B.C. jury hears testimony on teen victim’s autopsy

Jurors in a B.C. courtroom heard Tuesday from a doctor who took part in the autopsy of a teen girl murdered nearly six years ago.

Ibrahim Ali has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the July 18, 2017 killing. The victim’s name is protected by a publication ban.

Dr. Stephen Yip, a neuropathologist, took the stand for the first time, where he described examining the victim’s brain during the autopsy.

Yip told jurors that the initial examination found no fractures or obvious injuries visible to the naked eye.

But he testified that during a subsequent examination two weeks later he was able to conclude the injury to her brain was consistent with hypoxic ischemia — the result of a lack of blood flow and oxygen.

The jury heard that the girl was likely still alive, but unconscious for between 30 minutes to an hour after the blood flow was cut off.

However, Yip testified he was not able to say exactly what the victim’s cause of death was.

Crown’s theory is that Ali grabbed the victim in Burnaby’s Central Park and strangled her in the course of committing a sexual assault.

Prosecutors have told the jury they will present evidence that Ali’s DNA was found inside the victim, and that the two were strangers to one another.

Defence has told the court that the victim was depressed, and that according to a police statement given by her friend, the girl had tried to take her own life because her parents were divorcing.

The trial is expected to last until the end of June.

— with files from Rumina Daya

by Global News