24-year-old found guilty of attempted murder of Montreal police officer

Ali Ngarukiye, 24, was found guilty Wednesday in the attempted murder of Montreal police Constable Sanjay Vig, as he was carrying out a routine traffic stop in Parc-Extension in January 2021.

After five days of deliberations, the jury found Ngarukiye fully guilty following a three-month trial. They said the man had planned the attack, with the goal of killing police officers.

He was also convicted of aggravated assault, disarming a police officer, discharging a firearm recklessly and two counts related to two cars he stole to flee the scene.

Vig was injured in the back after being struck with a metal bar, after he was at his patrol car issuing a ticket to a motorist, Mamadi Fara Camara, who was wrongfully arrested in the case – mistakenly identified as the suspect in the case. A shot was also fired in Vig’s direction, narrowly missing his head.

Camara, 34 then a 31-year-old PhD student, was arrested and accused of having disarmed and shot Vig, who had pulled him over for using a cellphone while driving.

Camara was detained until Feb. 3, 2021 and was charged with attempted murder, assaulting a police officer and disarming a police officer. He was ultimately exonerated and cleared of all charges on Feb. 5.

In March of that year, police arrested Ngarukiye in Toronto, after DNA evidence collected from the scene pointed investigators to him – once again fully clearing Camara of any wrongdoing.

Back in September, Camara testified at the trial, saying the ordeal scared him. “The way they arrested me, pulling me out of the window,” he said, reinforced his belief of being a victim of racial profiling. “It was so brutal to me.”