Unascertained TVO

Part I: Soleiman Faqiri was a 30-year-old Canadian, born in Afghanistan, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. On December 15th, 2016, he was found dead in a segregation cell at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, after a struggle with correctional officers. What happened in that cell has led his family on a years-long search for answers.

Clips courtesy of CityNews and Global News

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Part II: Anthony Ouellette was an inmate at the Lindsay jail in 2016. He watched as Soleiman Faqiri's mental health slowly deteriorated during the 11 days he was kept in segregation, and desperately tried to get him help. Ouellette shares the shocking details of what he saw during that time, and how on the eleventh day, he came back to his cell to find out that Soleiman had died.

Clips courtesy of CityNews and CBC News

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Part III: A ten-month long investigation by the Kawartha Lakes Police Service concluded there were no grounds to lay charges in Soleiman Faqiri's death. But for lawyers Nader Hasan and Ted Marrocco, who represent the Faqiri family, that wasn't good enough. They wanted to know what evidence had been collected and who the police interviewed. They became suspicious that they weren't being told the full story.

Metro Morning with Matt Galloway interview courtesy of CBC Licensing

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Part IV: Apart from the correctional staff at the jail, it turns out there was someone else there the day Soleiman Faqiri died. Someone who says he saw everything. Host Yusuf Zine speaks to that eyewitness, who shares new jarring details of what he saw happen in that cell.

Audio clips courtesy The Evan Solomon Show, CBC Ontario Morning, Global News, and the Ontario Ombudsman

Background reading:

Ontario Ombudsman report - The Code

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Part V: There are no witness statements from any correctional officers involved in Soleiman's case that have been made public. And that comes as no surprise to former correctional officer Iosko Assenov. Since leaving his profession as a guard, he has become a whistleblower speaking out against racism, harassment and 'the code of silence' in Ontario's prisons. Yusuf Zine walks through Soleiman's death with Iosko to try to make sense of what we know so far.

News clips courtesy CBC News, The Evan Solomon Show and Global News

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Part VI: A new revelation in the case has been released to the public, and it may be the last piece of the puzzle. In the 6th part of Unascertained, Yusuf Zine takes a close look at just what happened in that cell on December 15, 2016 as he tries to finally determine: what happened to Soleiman Faqiri?

Clips courtesy of Global News, CityNews, TVNZ and CTV.

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