Video played at start of murder trial shows 3 Calgary men shot in daylight

A video of a brazen daylight shooting that killed two men and injured a third was played in a Calgary courtroom Monday as the accused's murder trial got underway.

Gerald David Benn, 25, faces two counts of first-degree murder and one charge of attempted murder in the 2020 shooting.

Abas Ahmed Ibrahim, 27, and Mohamed Khalid Shaikh, 19, both died. Dimetri Marr was injured but survived.

"This all happened over a $700-900 marijuana deal," said prosecutor Doug Taylor in his opening statement to Court of King's Bench Justice Nick Devlin. 

Before his opening address, Taylor played a video for the court that showed two angles of the shooting on Aug. 28, 2020. 

• Police charge 2nd suspect in fatal shooting in northwest Calgary

The video shows two cars pull over on Sandarac Road N.W. A red four-door car with the three victims parked just ahead of a black two-door car. 

A passenger from the back car walked up to the red car while a man the Crown says is Benn can be seen retrieving an item from the trunk. The prosecution says that item, wrapped in two plastic bags and a pair of men's swimming trunks, appears to be a gun. 

'You can clearly see the muzzle flashes'

Within a couple of minutes, the passenger from the black car appears to engage in a struggle with Shaikh, who, by then, is standing at the side of the car. 

As the man the Crown says is Benn runs up to the red car, a plastic bag falls off the gun. 

Five or six shots are fired at Shaikh and the two others. 

"You can clearly see the muzzle flashes," Taylor pointed out to the judge.

DNA matches

Ibrahim lived long enough to drive away, travelling about 100 metres down the road until he left the street and crashed into a tree. 

Two plastic bags — one from Walmart, another from Wendy's — were seized by police. They came back with fingerprints matching Benn's, according to the Crown.

A blood stain on one of the bags came back as a match to Benn as well, the prosecution says. 

Benn is represented by defence lawyers Andrea Urquhart and Kirsten Lancee. 

In March, Dennis Wong, who was driving the black car at the time, was handed a six-year sentence for manslaughter.