A Newmarket, Ont. jury heard from Elnaz Hajtamiri when the Crown played a 2021 police interview with the Richmond Hill, Ont. woman on the night she was attacked in her parking garage.
Hajtamiri remains missing and is presumed dead. Police believe she was abducted from a home in Wasaga Beach weeks later by three men posing as police officers who claimed to have a warrant for her arrest.
The two-week trial of Harshdeep Binner, 26, continued Thursday. Binner is accused of aggravated assault in the December 20, 2021, attack on Hajtamiri, that sent her to hospital for stitches to her forehead. Ontario Provincial Police investigators believe Hajtamiri, who was in hiding with loved ones on January 12, 2022, was abducted and has not been heard from since.
Hours after Elnaz Hajtamiri was attacked by two men in the parking garage, York Regional Police interviewed Hajtamiri to get her account of the assault.
The two-hour video was played Thursday for the jury.
In it, Hajtamiri told police she was walking with a friend on their way to go shopping, when she saw two men come out of a car. One man banged on her window. At first, Hajtamiri said she thought the men had a question for her or needed help with directions.
Hajtamiri said she noticed the men looked at her in a strange way, showing each other something.
As the man outside her door continued to bang on her window, Hajtamiri said she tried to lock her car and may have accidentally unlocked it.
She told police she was pulled out and thrown to the ground where she was hit while on her knees.
She said her friend was screaming while the second man stood outside the car, as Hajtamiri was being hit by the bigger man.
“I couldn’t even move,” said Hajtamiri to police. Hajtamiri said when her attackers noticed another man was nearby, they took off.
She described the man who dragged her out of the vehicle and hit her as the taller and bigger of the two, adding both men were of Middle Eastern or Indian descent.
“Things happened so fast I couldn’t remember,” Hajtamiri added. “They came to just not hit me, I can feel that.”
Three weeks later she was kidnapped from the Wasaga Beach home and loaded into a stolen white Lexus SUV.
Binner, is on trial charged with the aggravated assault of Hajtamiri and possession of a stolen vehicle used in the attack.
The Crown says Binner attacked Hajtamiri and pulled a chunk of her hair from her head, saying his DNA was found on the scene including on a balaclava.
Binner and another man, Riyasat Singh, were later arrested in Edmonton and charged with stealing Ford F-150 pickup trucks according to investigators. They were then released.
About a month later, Singh was arrested by York Regional Police detectives and charged in the frying pan attack on Hajtamiri. He pleaded guilty in late 2022 to aggravated assault and was deported.
The trial is scheduled to continue Friday when the jury is expected to hear further Crown witness testimony.
