No time behind bars sought for Airbnb host who attacked Alberta sisters in Vancouver

It will be a few months before a Vancouver Airbnb host who brutally attacked two sisters from Alberta learns his sentence, but it looks like one way or another he won’t see any additional time behind bars.

Arvin Pasha pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm for the May 2022 attack last September. He was initially charged with aggravated assault, but entered pleas to the lesser charges days before his trial was set to begin.

The two victims, 23- and 25-year-old sisters vacationing from Alberta, were staying at Pasha’s West 3rd Avenue short-term rental in Kitsilano when they were attacked.

According to an agreed statement of facts entered in court, Pasha was living in the two-bedroom apartment at the time and renting out one room on Airbnb.

The two victims, whose identities are protected by a publication ban, arrived at the apartment on May 26, unaware Pasha would also be staying there.

Around 3 a.m. the following morning, he was pacing in the hallway outside the apartment with a 30-cm knife when he was heard saying, “they’re torturing my cat,” and “they baited all the cats in the neighbourhood.”

The court heard the older of the two sisters was awoken by banging on the apartment door and windows, before Pasha broke a window and entered the apartment.

He stabbed the younger sister in the head, neck and hand and accused her of stabbing his cat, according to the agreed statement of facts.

Pasha then swung the knife at the older sister before also stabbing her in the head, neck and arm.

In a June 2022 interview, neighbour and witness Saad Mustafa told Global News he heard women screaming and a man yelling on the night of the attack. He opened his door to find a disturbing scene.

“One young lady, she appeared to have a stab wound in the neck or neck area. It was covered with a white long scarf or shawl. She was on the floor lying on her back and she was bleeding very, very badly,” he said.

“There was another young lady who was pinned to the wall and being threatened by a knife.”

Police arrested Pasha at the scene, and both women survived the attack.

The Crown read victim impact statements from both sisters.

“How do I move forward after watching my sister come so close to death,” the older sister wrote. “The woman that I was feels very distant.

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“Nothing can take back what he did … put yourself in my shoes. How would you feel if you were the one who was stabbed eight times.”

The younger sister wrote that her “smile is crooked and will never be the same.”

“I was told if the knife had gone through my neck as intended, I wouldn’t have survived,” she wrote, adding the “incident shattered my sense of security and faith in others.”

Both sisters spoke of lasting impacts including scars and post-traumatic stress disorder. The younger sister noted that doctors found a piece of the knife in her face, which she will have to live with forever.

Pasha’s defence lawyer argued his client should be sentenced to a conditional discharge — a legal measure that would allow him to avoid a criminal record if he adheres to conditions.

He told the court Pasha has an “unspecified psychotic disorder,” and suffered a mental breakdown on the day of the attack, triggered by marijuana use.

Pasha believed he had been drugged, his lawyer said, and that his cat was being tortured. He subsequently hallucinated for seven days after his arrest, he told the court. While living with his mother on bail, he had another delirium episode and later attempted suicide, his lawyer told the court.

He is now asymptomatic, stable, and is “surprised and horrified” by the injuries and trauma the sisters experienced.

The Crown argued a discharge is contrary to the public interest, given the extreme violence of the offence.

But prosecutors also proposed a sentence that would not see him serve any further time behind bars — acknowledging that Pasha had “lessened moral culpability” because of his mental illness.

The Crown recommended a 22-month conditional sentence order, followed by three years of probation.