Alberta top court downgrades murder convictions in quadruple homicide case

CALGARY – Alberta’s top court has downgraded two convictions in a high-profile case involving the torture and killing of a man and the deaths of three others from first-degree to second-degree murder.

The Alberta Court of Appeal released the decision today in the cases of Tewodros Kebede and Yu Chieh Liao over the killing of Hanock Afowerk.

The Appeal Court found the trial judge gave the jury misleading instructions about whether the murder was planned and deliberate.

The Crown chose to substitute verdicts of second-degree murder rather than retry the case.

Afowerk’s body — bound, beaten, strangled and shot — was found in a ditch outside Calgary in July 2017.

The change does not affect Kebede’s and Liao’s convictions involving the deaths of the other three victims.

Liao was found guilty of being an accessory in all three while Kebede was convicted of the same charge in one of them.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 23, 2022.