Survivors of a mass stabbing attack at a west-end Edmonton warehouse testified at a Wednesday jury trial about the chaos of the day in 2014 when it’s alleged that Jayme Pasieka, 32, armed himself with knives and stabbed six of his colleagues.
Pasieka is on trial for two counts of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted murder and aggravated assault. He is accused of stabbing six people — including Fitzroy Harris, 50, and Thierno Bah, 41, who both died — at the 16104 121A Ave. Loblaws warehouse where he was an employee on Feb. 28, 2014.
One of the four men who survived stab wounds, Mahmoud Ayesh, told court he remembers it as having been a normal shift right up until the attack.
“All of the sudden he was right up in front of my face,” Ayesh testified.
At first, he thought his attacker was punching him in the chest. It wasn’t until he felt the blood running down his body that he realized he’d been stabbed.
He was trying to kill me
“He was trying to kill me,” Ayesh said.
Ayesh testified that he was looking in to his attacker’s eyes as the man kept repeating: “I don’t like you,” over and over.
Ayesh eventually fell over on to his back, managing to kick his way free and run away. He collapsed on a the floor and was getting first aid from other workers, who suddenly bolted and told him to run because the man with the knives was coming back.
Ayesh told court the attacker seemed to be enjoying the chaos and was “smirking.”
“People were scared of him and he was enjoying it,” Ayesh told jurors. Ayesh, adding he’d never interacted with Pasieka before, said he made eye contact with him while being stabbed. He said Pasieka looked angry.
It didn’t seem like he was out of control
“Angry, but calculated. It didn’t seem like he was out of control,” he testified.
Despite his injuries, Ayesh again managed to get up and run into an office with other workers, where a manager called the police.
Ayesh and two other men testified that they recognized Pasieka as a colleague, but didn’t know him.
Abdelfetteh Aouachri, who was stabbed in the forearm when he ran to help Bah, testified that Pasieka never talked to anyone at work, and that he’d personally avoided Pasieka because he “didn’t like his walk.”
Axamed Muktar, who was stabbed in the chest and thumb, told court that he remembers Pasieka saying he “hated” him during the attack.
Muktar and the other witnesses all identified Pasieka in court as the man who attacked them. Each one testified Pasieka had been wearing dark clothing on the day of the attack.
Pasieka, sitting in the the prisoner’s box, did not react to any of the testimony from witnesses.
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