B.C. crime news: Vancouver taxi driver assaulted after refusing ride | Horror stabbing deemed terrorism related | Police seek witnesses after car torched, bus vandalized in Surrey

A taxi driver was assaulted in Vancouver on Wednesday after refusing to pick up a passenger.

Vancouver police said they were called at around 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday after a man was spotted damaging a vehicle near Butler Street and East 46th Avenue. The man fled the area after damaging the vehicle’s side-view mirror.

Just 30 minutes later, another call to police reported an assault near Tyne Street and East 47th Avenue by a suspect with a similar description as the first incident.

“The victim, a taxi driver, stated that the man approached him while he was inside his taxi,” said police in a statement. “When he refused to give him a ride, the man allegedly punched him in the neck, then punched the taxi multiple times.”

The cab driver watched the suspect nearby until officers arrived and arrested a man.

Brent David Hasman, 50, is charged with assault and mischief.

A man who stabbed a man with a knife on a bus before pledging allegiance to the leader of ISIS in 2023 has been convicted of terrorism-related charges and sentenced to more than 16 years in jail.

Abdul Aziz Kawam, 31, had held a knife to the throat of a man at a Surrey bus stop near Fraser Highway and 148th Street, and chased him after he escaped his grasp. But Kawam then boarded the Coast Mountain Transit bus No. 503 at 156th Street, where he slashed the neck of a passenger before he was forced off the bus.

Kawam then called 911 and told the operator the attack was on behalf of ISIS and pledged allegiance to Abu Al-Hussaini Al-Quraishi, then leader of ISIS.

The Saudi Arabian-born Lebanese citizen, who had been in Canada since 2014, was arrested by police while still holding the bloody knife.

On June 30, he was convicted in the Supreme Court of B.C. for attempted murder for the benefit of, or in association with, a terrorist group, and assault with a weapon for the benefit of, or in association with, a terrorist group. On Thursday, he was sentenced to 16 years and eight months in prison.

At the time of sentencing, Kawam had spent three years and seven months in jail, credited as five years and four months.

Police are investigating after a vehicle was set on fire and a bus vandalized outside a Surrey home on Wednesday.

At around 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Surrey police were called to a home in the 14500-block of 91st Avenue where fire crews were tackling a passenger vehicle that was fully engulfed by fire. A bus parked nearby, also associated with the same home, had been spray-painted.

The initial investigation determined that a suspect had fled the area on foot after torching the vehicle and spray-painting the bus.

Investigators are now asking witnesses to come forward and appealing for any surveillance or dashcam footage that may have been captured in the area near 145th Street and 91st Avenue between 11 p.m. and midnight that evening.

Anyone with information can contact police at 604-599-0502.

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