Vancouver Poker Game Robber Gets 12 Years

06:55
04 Sep

A Vancouver man has been handed a 12-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the May 2021 shooting of a sex worker and March 2021 armed robbery of a poker home game.

Iraq-born Ali Rafid Khudh Khudhair, 26, was sentenced by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Heather MacNaughton manslaughter, robbery and the use of an imitation firearm while committing robbery.

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Calculated Acts

In March 2021, Khudhair was invited to a poker home game hosted at a condo.in Burnaby. He wasn’t an active player but sat at the table alongside the friend who brought him along.

After Khudhair’s friend lost his stack, the pair went outside to smoke before returning and producing firearms. The other players were then ordered to place their phones on the table and then lie face down on the floor.

Khudhair stole an original Rolex watch from one guest and then CAD$1,500 from the host after striking him twice in the face.

At that point, Khudhair decided he wanted more and marched the host into his bedroom, threatening to kill him unless he handed over the rest of the money he had in the condo. This he did, removing CAD$10,000 from a safe but he was then pistol-whipped again and told to hand over even more.

As this took place, the host was now in a position to grab a knife placed nearby and slashed Khudhair across his face, pushing him outside the bedroom at the same time. Khudhair and his friend now took their chance to escape with what they had.

Two months later, Khudhair arranged a liaison with a sex worker and arrived at her home before producing a gun and attempting to rob her. Unknown to Khudhair, the woman’s boyfriend was present in a spare bedroom.

Somehow, while Khudhair was holding his gun, the woman was able to dial 911 before being forced to close the call. The woman’s boyfriend then came to investigate after hearing what he called “strange sounds”.

Incredibly, in an act of tremendous bravery, the boyfriend then pushed Khudhair out of the bedroom, sending him into retreat down the stairs. As Khudhair neared the exit, he turned to see the boyfriend chasing him and fired a single shot which struck the woman.

The bullet “passed through the soft tissue of (the woman’s) right forearm, entered the right side of her chest cavity between the third and forth ribs, passed through the middle and lower lobes of the right lung and exited through the right sixth rib close to the spinal column,” according the court transcripts.

The boyfriend then pursued the armed Khudhair who threw the gun into a bush shortly before being caught and wrestled to the ground. Khudhair was then beaten with punches and kicks before the police arrived.

Medics arrived soon after and found the woman unresponsive. Emergency surgery at the hospital failed to save her life.