By Ben Gelinas, The Edmonton Journal — One of two men who were kidnapped and robbed on the weekend watched as his friend was shot in the stomach with a shotgun in Hermitage Park, police say.Mustafa Warsame dove into a nearby pond to escape his captors, according to a search warrant in the case, obtained by The Journal.

Police searched an apartment suite on 118th Avenue near 93rd Street on Sunday for the weapon, stolen items, and other forensic evidence, hours after the body of Mohamed Farah Khalif was found in the park.

Homicide investigators say the alleged killers abducted Warsame and Khalif at the Dover Hotel on Saturday and held the two men in the 118th Avenue apartment well into Sunday morning. According to the warrant, they demanded money from the two men, and pointed the shotgun at Warsame, telling him he would be held hostage “until the banks opened up on Monday.”

Khalif and Warsame were allegedly forced to empty their pockets, and hand over their keys and a cellphone. Eventually, Warsame fell asleep in the apartment for a couple hours before he was awakened by one of his captors and told they were “going shooting.”

The two captives and two captors drove to the north side of Hermitage Park. They all got out of the car and one of the captors allegedly shot Khalif in the stomach. According to the warrant, the other man was heard to say, “Shoot him again” after Khalif was shot.

Police were called to the park around 5:30 a.m. Sunday but were unable to find Khalif’s body after an initial search. Around noon, two constables on another sweep of Hermitage found Khalif’s body face down in the brush. Both alleged captors were arrested Sunday afternoon. All the men knew each other, but police would not elaborate on their relationships.

Abdikadir Mohamed Abdow, 22, and Mohamed Abdilla Awaleh, 36, face 23 charges in connection with the abductions and the killing, including first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of robbery and numerous offences related to the shotgun.

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