Nunavut man gets jail time ahead of firearms charges

Ezekiel Mucktar, 37, was sentenced to four months in jail for breaking and entering into a hamlet shed in Pond Inlet in Sept. 2016. RCMP officers arrested Mucktar when he was inside the shed, “huffing” canisters of oxygen, while among highly explosive canisters of acetylene. (FILE PHOTO)

A Pond Inlet man charged in a slew of firearms-related offences will await resolution to those charges behind bars, after he was sentenced to four months in jail for earlier crimes by a judge, Dec. 15.

Ezekiel Mucktar, 37, was sentenced in person at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit, a few minutes’ drive from where he was already being held in remand custody for threatening to kill a man and his dog with a gun last month.

Mucktar pleaded guilty in September to breaking and entering into a hamlet shed on Sept. 19, 2016. RCMP officers arrested Mucktar when he was still inside in the shed and “huffing” canisters of oxygen, which were stacked among other highly explosive canisters of compounds like acetylene.

Mucktar also pleaded guilty to a charge of mischief, for when he set fire to a suitcase full of his girlfriend’s clothes at the Pond Inlet dump.

During Mucktar’s sentencing, Nunavut Justice Bonnie Tulloch admitted a jail term for the charges was almost a foregone conclusion, considering the long list of previous break-ins in his criminal record.

“We never want to set people up to fail and clearly the actions of the accused are such that I do not believe that a conditional sentence order is appropriate with respect to these charges,” Tulloch said.

That’s in part because Mucktar breached court undertakings given to him in September, by allegedly commiting acts that drew eight firearms-related charges from the RCMP, when he allegedly threatened to kill a man and his dog, and recklessly firing his gun in November.

Those charges have not been proven in court.

“When I arrived in Pond Inlet on Nov. 20 [at Mucktar’s previously scheduled sentencing] I was advised that you had been detained as a result of the new charges, and you found yourself in Baffin Correctional Centre in Iqaluit,” she said.

Tulloch sentenced Mucktar to 120 days for the mischief and break-in charges, with 35 days subtracted for time already served in custody during remand.

He was also sentenced to one-year probation upon his release, at which point he will be ordered to attend counselling sessions with a mental health worker.

The incident at the hamlet shed, Tulloch said, “could have resulted in catastrophic consequences” given the combustible nature of the oxygen and acetylene canisters, and that Mucktar “suffers from a very serious case of an addiction to huffing.”

She added that Mucktar “seems to have a very flawed understanding of what constitutes a healthy relationship” when he burned a collection of his girlfriend’s clothing at the dump in an act of paranoia.

Mucktar claimed the act was spurred by suspicions of infidelity, because his girlfriend did not want to spend “every minute with him.”

“It is very difficult when your girlfriend doesn’t respect you,” Tulloch quoted Muchtar from an address he made to the court when he entered his guilty plea in September.

“It shows [Mucktar] has a complete lack of respect for other people’s property,” Tulloch concluded, and that the “jealously aspects are very disturbing.”

Crown lawyer Philippe Plourde told the court that it will “take a significant amount of time” to address Mucktar’s newest firearms charges either in a resolution or trial.

That means it’s likely Mucktar will continue to stay in remand custody after his sentence for mischief and breaking and entering is completed.

Lawyers will meet again on Jan. 18 for an administrative appearance to update the court on the ongoing disclosure for Mucktar’s firearms offences.