Appeal Court denies request for new trial for Quebecer who killed spouse, 2 kids

A convicted triple murderer from the Montreal area has lost an appeal to get a new trial and will remain behind bars to finish serving a life sentence.

Mohamad Al Ballouz, who now identifies as a woman and goes by the first name Levana, was convicted of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Synthia Bussières, 38, and of first-degree murder in the deaths of their two kids, aged five and two.

The killings happened in September of 2022 in Brossard, on Montreal’s South Shore.

Al Ballouz filed an application to request an extension on the time limit to appeal the guilty verdicts and to present new evidence. However, on Monday, a panel of three Quebec Court of Appeal judges rejected the entirety of the arguments in the appeal, calling them “frivolous” and without merit.

Among them was a claim that the Bussières had allegedly screamed out “mes enfants” (my children), in an attempt to prove that she was still alive when firefighters arrived on scene.

“Forensic evidence provides indisputable proof that the mother had died before the firefighters arrived,” the appeal court’s decision stated.

“The items proposed as fresh evidence were available at trial and the applicant chose not to pursue it. But more importantly, the two items proposed by the applicant cannot have any bearing upon a decisive or potentially decisive issue in the trial. They only serve to perpetuate a delusional opinion that the mother was alive and that it was, in fact, she who murdered the children.”

Al Ballouz also attempted to cast doubt on the jury’s verdicts because there was no evidence presented about the applicant’s state of mind, pointing to the fact that Al Ballouz did not testify during the trial, made no statement to police after the killings, and there was no psychiatric evidence filed about the applicant’s mental state.

The judges dismissed these claims as having no merit.

Al Ballouz also tried to blame the deceased’s mother for their children’s murders, an argument the panel of judges considered “frivolous and unfounded.”

The judges ruled that the applicant also failed to raise any errors of fact in the appeal and failed to prove there was evidence of bias in the trial judge’s instructions to the jury.

“In sum, the applicant has presented no fresh evidence and the proposed appeal is destined to fail and is clearly frivolous,” the appeal decision stated.

“Considering the overwhelming and uncontested evidence, it would be contrary to the interests of justice to allow the application for an extension of the time limit to appeal and, therefore, the appeal.”

Both the request to present new evidence and the request for an extension to file the appeal were rejected.

Al Ballouz will continue serving a life sentence in a men’s prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. A request by the convicted murderer to serve the sentence in a women’s prison was denied by the Correctional Service of Canada.

When Quebec Superior Court Justice Eric Downs handed down his sentence in December 2024, he described Al Ballouz as “sadistic” and the killing of Bussières as a “femicide.”