Auburn man facing murder charge challenges police report

AUBURN — An attorney for a local man charged with murder, who is seeking to throw out evidence from search warrants for cellphone and social media records, argued Wednesday that there were flaws in a police affidavit.

Abdikadir Nur Lewiston Police Department photo

Abdikatur Nur, 21, is charged with intentional or knowing murder. If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in prison.

Nur has denied the charge.

In an affidavit written by a Maine State Police detective, a woman is identified as an eyewitness to last year’s fatal shooting of 18-year-old Hassan Hassan of Lewiston on River Street on Halloween night.

The woman told police she was in a car that night and saw Nur shoot Hassan.

Nur’s attorney, Verne Paradie, told Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Harold Stewart II on Wednesday that the witness’ statements were not only inconsistent with other witness statements and evidence gathered at the scene, but were also evasive.

He said the affidavit supporting the search warrants should have included those contradictory statements and evidence.

“If all of these inconsistencies and inaccuracies are put in the totality of circumstances, it paints a different picture of (the eyewitness’) story,” Paradie said.

The eyewitness said Nur was dressed in black and wore a Louis Vuitton mask that night.

But another witness interviewed by police told them Nur wore a striped shirt and had no mask, Paradie said. That witness’ statement wasn’t included in the affidavit for the search warrants, Paradie said.

The eyewitness first told police that Nur was walking with another man, who was behind him, Paradie said.

Nur and the person with him confronted Hassan, who was in a van parked on River Street with the eyewitness, according to the eyewitness’ statement, Paradie said.

The eyewitness told police that Hassan got out of the van and Nur pulled a gun on him. Hassan swung a baseball bat at Nur’s hand, knocking the gun from his hand. Nur then picked up the gun and shot Hassan in the leg, Paradie said.

But the eyewitness later told police a different version of events that police failed to include in the affidavit, Paradie said.

In that later version, the eyewitness told police that the person with Nur was shot by someone other than Nur. The person with Nur didn’t go to the hospital, she said, Paradie told the judge.

When police asked the eyewitness whether someone in the van she was in had a gun and shot the man with Nur, she confirmed it, but declined to disclose the identity of that person, other than a nickname, Paradie said, adding none of those details was in the affidavit supporting the warrants.

Paradie said that additional information raises the possibility of self-defense, if two guns were involved and it’s unclear who shot first.

The eyewitness also declined to identify everyone who was in the van. She told police she wouldn’t fully cooperate because she didn’t want any of her friends to get in trouble, Paradie said.

“Those details somehow don’t make it into the affidavit,” Paradie said.

“What is she hiding? What’s her motivation? What’s her credibility? It’s difficult to tell on a piece of paper, but it’s even more difficult when you don’t have the full story of what’s going on,” Paradie told the judge.

Under federal constitutional law, if Paradie were to have demonstrated Wednesday successfully to Justice Stewart that there is reason to believe the detective who wrote the affidavit intentionally included a false statement or did so with reckless disregard for the truth and that the false statement was the reason probable cause was found to secure the warrant, then a so-called Franks hearing would be scheduled to determine whether the evidence from the search should be thrown out of the case and not be allowed to be presented at trial.

Assistant Attorney General Donald Macomber told Stewart on Wednesday that a judge would have granted the warrant after finding probable cause to support it, even if everything Paradie said had been left out of the affidavit had, in fact, been included in the warrant.

If Stewart were to agree, Nur would not get a hearing to suppress the information gleaned from the search warrants, Macomber said.

“Basically, the affidavit includes the driver putting Mr. Nur at the scene. We have the eyewitness saying she saw Nur — whom she knows from prior experiences where he tried to attack her in some way and grew up with him — shoot Mr. Hassan,” Macomber said.

He said much of what’s known now either wasn’t known at the time the detective wrote the affidavit or hadn’t been conveyed to the detective.

Stewart made no decision Wednesday.

Nur is being held without bail pending trial.