The family of a man killed during a drug-related kidnapping and extortion in 2024 sobbed in a Winnipeg courtroom on Monday, as one of the three men charged in the case was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years.
Sonny “Nick” Balemba, now 28, stood expressionless before sheriff’s officers took him out of the courtroom in handcuffs following his sentencing, as victim Zeyad Shammo’s family cried out in agony through heavy sobs from the gallery.
“Losing my brother shattered our entire family,” Sulaf Shammo wrote in a victim impact statement read in court by Crown attorney Vanessa Gama.
“We were a close family. And now we’re all lost.”
Court heard Shammo, 22, was lured to a home on Bristol Avenue in Winnipeg’s St. Boniface area on the evening of Sept. 9, 2024, thinking he’d be selling drugs to Robert James Chaykowski, one of the two other men later charged in his death.
Instead, he ended up being kidnapped by Balemba, Chaykowski and a third man, Chad Jason Dandan — all involved in the city’s drug trade — “to extort money and drugs from Shammo’s drug network, an act commonly referred to as a ‘drug rip,'” an agreed statement of facts said.
Police later found Shammo’s body in the basement of the Bristol Avenue home in the early hours of Sept. 13, 2024. His injuries included blunt force head trauma, stab wounds on his back and leg, extensive bruising “consistent with a hammer” and a shattered left arm.
A pathologist later determined Shammo died from intracranial bleeding and “catastrophic hemorrhage” from a severed artery, the agreed facts said.
Police conduct leads to plea deal
Balemba previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced based on a joint recommendation between Crown and defence lawyers, as part of a deal informed in part by issues with how police handled the case, court heard.
That included officers questioning Balemba for nearly two hours without giving him a lawyer after he’d asked for one — a decision Gama said was made because police believed a lawyer might hamper efforts to get information that could help them find Shammo, who was missing for several days.
Police also later did a warrantless search of Balamba’s cellphone, “initially for an exigent purpose,” but ended up accessing communications between Balemba and his lawyer, which police then read, printed out and brought with them into the room when they interviewed Balemba.
“Although those materials were not ultimately shown to him, obviously this constitutes a serious intrusion into Mr. Balemba’s solicitor-client privilege,” Gama said.
Defence lawyer Shimon Segal told court Balemba was born in Congo and came to Canada with his family at age 10. Segal said Balemba later struggled financially, and recalled “having months go by where $12 was the remaining balance in his chequing account after his bills were paid.”
He said those details shed light on the circumstances “that led to a life where he might put himself in a situation where he’s in that social context,” at one point citing the Stanford prison experiment as an example of how “good people are willing to do cruel acts.”
“That does not mean that you should take pity on Sonny Balemba,” Segal told the judge.
“It helps you, in your mind, weigh whether or not … we’re talking about a depraved individual.”
‘Worst kind of violence that the court can see’
While there was no evidence Balemba physically participated in torturing Shammo before his death, Court of King’s Bench Justice Shauna McCarthy said he carried the victim in and out of the home at various points, knowing he was severely injured — and noted one instance where Shammo’s captors tried and failed to make him walk after removing him from the trunk of a vehicle.
“Chaykowski then said, ‘this is how you do it,’ and grabbed Shammo by the ankles, and dragged him into the house and down the basement stairs, causing Shammo’s head to strike each step as he descended,” the agreed facts said.
Justice McCarthy said she had no question that Balemba “had knowledge and understanding of how serious this was.”
“And notwithstanding that, you continued to be involved,” she said, describing the case as one involving “the worst kind of violence that the court can see,” motivated not by passion or anger, but by wanting to gain money and authority.
“And the worst part, perhaps, is that even after Mr. Shammo … was deceased, you continued to try to obtain money through extortion and kidnapping. And that, to me, is just –”
“Evil,” one of Shammo’s relatives said from the gallery.
“Hard to believe,” McCarthy said.
Thrown phone calls 911
At one point around midnight the night of the kidnapping, Shammo was taken from the basement of the Bristol Avenue home and put into the trunk of his own black Honda Civic, the agreed facts said.
As his captors drove around trying to negotiate a ransom, Shammo tried to use his phone to call someone from the trunk — but the device connected to the car’s Bluetooth, alerting his kidnappers.
They pulled him from the trunk and threw his phone into a bushed area, setting off an automated crash notification when the phone hit the ground, which resulted in a 911 call transmitting the device’s GPS co-ordinates.
About 10 minutes later, a fire truck responded to the area. It didn’t find anyone and subsequently cleared the scene. A woman later found the dumped phone on Sept. 11, 2024.
The agreed facts also detail a number of incidents from the night of the kidnapping that Balemba said his co-accused were involved in. Both Chaykowski and Dandan remain before the court.
Those include one incident where Chaykowski is alleged to have come up from the basement wearing bloody blue latex gloves, asking for the music to be turned louder to drown out the screaming, and another where Dandan allegedly twisted Shammo’s arm so hard the victim’s bone and ligaments broke, then used Balemba’s phone to take pictures of himself learning over Shammo’s unconscious, injured body.
Chad Jason Dandan is one of three men charged with murder in Zeyad Shammo’s death. Dandan was arrested in Surrey, B.C., in March. (Submitted by Winnipeg Police Service)
The agreed facts said Shammo’s drug network delivered their ransom of money and drugs sometime between 7 and 8:30 a.m. in a blue bag placed at Whittier Park. While Balemba and others went to pick it up, when they returned to the basement where they’d left Shammo, he was dead.
“Despite this, Balemba continued to mislead Shammo’s family, telling them that Shammo had been dropped off at a McDonald’s in Brandon,” the agreed facts said. “The family repeatedly pleaded for Shammo’s return, and Balemba eventually ceased responding.”
Court also heard phone analysis indicated the men charged in the case were acting at the direction of two other people, and that the investigation into those people remained ongoing. A Winnipeg police spokesperson said the service had no updates to provide Monday.