Robert Daignault, the third member of the trio involved in a botched robbery that started in Calgary and ended on a remote rural road near the Springbank airport four years ago had his sentencing hearing postponed Wednesday in Calgary Court of Kings Bench.
Daignault was convicted of manslaughter Jan. 24, after the original charge of murder had been lessened.
Uber driver Kasif Hirani was taken in his own vehicle from a Calgary residence and fatally stabbed before being left in a snowy ditch near the Springbank airport in the early hours of Dec.29, 2019.
As the sun rose later that morning, Daryl Johannesen was walking his two yellow labs along a road near the airport when he spotted Virani’s body in a snowbank. He initially thought it might have been a moose or deer carcass.
Last month Justice Eleanor Funk said everything Robert Daignault did was consistent with a man who had killed someone, rather than just robbed them.
During Daignault’s trial Court heard that Hirani was stabbed 30 times.
Crown prosecutor Britta Kristensen, who had asked for the downgrade to manslaughter from murder last year, said outside the courtroom Wednesday that she needed more time to prepare her documentation for the sentencing hearing.
The two star witnesses in Daignault’s case, Trista Tinkler and Andrew Christal, were previously convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six and eight years respectively. Christal testified that it was Daignault that stabbed the victim.
The sentencing hearing for Daignault is now set for Feb. 23.
