Former Inuvik landlord, Talal Khatib, found not guilty in drug trial

Talal Khatib has been found not guilty of possession for the purpose of trafficking and proceeds of crime.

He attended Wednesday's court proceedings by video from his Edmonton home.

Khatib was 65 years old when he was charged in October 2017, after police searched his Inuvik home. Police said they found 350 grams of cocaine and more than $25,000 in cash throughout the residence, including about $2,360 stuffed inside a cut in a mattress.

RCMP also discovered salvia and 500 grams of marijuana, significantly over the limit of 30 grams, which Canadians are legally permitted to possess, though only cocaine was included in the charges before the court.

N.W.T. Supreme Court Chief Justice Louise Charbonneau said she was left with reasonable doubt that he was in control of the cocaine and money found in a house he shared with a housemate. Khatib was not the only person who had access to the rooms where the cocaine and the money was found. The same heating duct where evidence was found was also accessible from the lower level of the house where the housemate was found during the RCMP search.

The housemate was never charged in the case or summoned by either the Crown prosecutor Morgan Fane, or defence lawyer Katherine Oja, to testify.

The testimony from Victor Ciboci and the evidence that the housemate offered to pay him with powdered cocaine in exchange for fixing the house's hot water suggested that the housemate had knowledge of and access to the drugs and had some form of control. He shared the house with Khatib but the lease was under his name and he was responsible for the residence.

Charbonneau said the most damning evidence against Khatib came from the RCMP surveillance. Police observed Khatib making "hand-to-hand exchanges." During a search warrant, small illegal pouches with drugs inside them were by the window, along with a set of binoculars and two cans of bear spray. She said that evidence proved that Khatib was involved in a storefront operation, but that's not what he was charged for.

His lawyer, Oja, had argued that Khatib had no knowledge of the cocaine found in the residence and that the link to the money and cocaine to Khatib would be speculation with no direct evidence or knowledge.

The judge ordered that the drugs and money seized be kept by the police as proceeds of crime.