Teen receives four years in custody for fatal stabbing of Halifax high school student

A Halifax-area youth has been sentenced to four years in custody and three years of conditional supervision for fatally stabbing a high school student during a planned group attack last year.

The 16-year-old accused, who was 14 at the time of the attack, received the maximum sentence under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

However, the youth court judge today reduced the sentence by 12 months, partly because the teen had already served more than 19 months in pre-sentence detention.

In January of this year, the accused pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of 16-year-old Ahmad Maher Al Marrach, a well-liked Grade 10 student at Citadel High School in Halifax.

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Court heard that on April 22, 2024, the killer and three other teens met at a downtown Halifax shopping mall where the accused stole a large kitchen knife from a discount store.

The group then took a bus to a parkade near the Halifax Shopping Centre, where one of the teens — a 17-year-old — had previously agreed with Al Marrach over text to have a one-on-one fight over a girl.

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An agreed statement of facts says all four teens joined in attacking Al Marrach, but it was the 14-year-old who pulled a knife from his clothing and stabbed him in the chest.