farhan hassan › deadmonton 2007 › deadmonton › edmonton

Farhan Hassan, 27, was shot to death September 2nd, 2007.

Hassan was Edmonton's twenty-first homicide victim of the year.

Case status is open and active. For the latest information visit the The Fulton Place Double Murder page.

On September 6th, 2007 a funeral for Hassan and Kasim Mohamed was attended by up to 250 persons from the Somali community.

The service, which only lasted a few minutes, was held at the Canadian Islamic Centre at 13070 113 Street. Mourners came from Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver and the United States.

Hassan Ali, President of the Somali-Canadian Cultural Society, addressed the media.

"This is difficult to the community, and this is difficult to Edmontonians at large, but especially for the Somali community because these people are the young."

"These people are the young and the parents came here not for themselves. They brought the children here in order to get better life but some of them they are not getting that."

"This is not why they came to Canada. They came here and left Somalia because they were looking for a safe place to live, but the way it ended was not the way they planned and expected."

Ali referenced the murders of three other members of Edmonton's small Somali community. Deng Atem Bulgak and Juk (Jock) Deng Ring were shot dead behind a one-storey duplex at 13329 82 Street on May 15th, 2007, and 19-year-old Mahamud Yassin Yusuf was found dead near Stony Plain five days later.

"This is too high for us and we need everybody's help to bring those responsible to justice."

"Help the authorities to solve this crime."

Abdi Mohamed, a member of the Somali community and not related to the victim, said, "We would like members of the Somali community to come out with information."

Mohamed added that some community members believe the murders were gang-related despite police stating the murders were not related to drugs or gangs.

“That’s another opinion. I don’t know that, but this is what I heard so far from community members, that gangs did it,” said Mohamed

Hassan and Mohamed were buried at the Edmonton Muslim Cemetery on the city's northern outskirts.

Farhan Hassan (above) and Kasim Mohamed were friends who fled the civil war in Somalia. They had known each other for 10 years.

Hassan came to Canada in 1993 and lived in Calgary. He left behind his wife, 23-year-old Halimo Mohamud, and two sons, one two years old and the other just over a month old. The couple were days short of their third wedding anniversary.

Mourning family members and friends of Hassan later gathered at a relative's northside apartment after the funeral and internment.

Global Edmonton spoke to Hassan's wife Halimo Mohamud. She spoke of closure and the challenge of telling her sons what happened to their father.

"It would help a lot. It would set us at ease to knowing that whoever did this is caught and punished somehow."

"It's hard to deal with it because we don't know ... we just can't understand why he was killed."

“It's hard, I don’t know how to explain it to my sons, that they’re not going to have their father.”

“Boys always depend on their father. He's the one to teach them many things about life.”

"The only thing I can tell them is what kind of father he was and how wonderful a person he was and everybody loved him. It's hard to get grips with it."

"It's like nobody ever said anything bad about him, he was a loving person, always made everybody smile ... happy."

Abdul Issa, Farhan Hassan's brother, expressed his loss and asked those who knew anything about the murders to come forward.

"We are grieving, certainly. I have to support my brother but it's not easy. We expect to be safe country, we would look for better life but this is not what we come here for."

"It's very scary moment for us, we lost a very young guy – very smart."

"And we appeal to the public if they know any information to come forward – do not be scared about the police – because this killer with a gun is loose. He can kill another time, another person. We don't feel safe."

Mohamud echoed her brother-in-law's appeal.

“Please, you should just come forward and try to help,” she said. The widow returned to Calgary with her two sons.

deadmonton 2007 - farhan hassan