Dec 17, 2007 - 11:21 AM

By Jeff Mitchell

DURHAM - Neven Belic has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the killing of Eugene "Dwayne" Moses, an innocent man who was gunned down at a Durham College pub three and a half years ago.

Mr. Belic, 27, of Toronto, was also found guilty of two counts of  aggravated assault in the wounding of two other men who were struck by  bullets when shots rang out inside the E.P. Taylor's pub in Oshawa after midnight on April 3, 2004.

Jurors returned with a verdict Sunday morning after deliberating for more than two full days. The 12-member panel was sequestered for the duration of the deliberations, which began at the conclusion of Superior Court Justice Bruce Glass's instructions Thursday afternoon.

Evidence in the trial began Nov. 6. The prosecution, led by Durham Crown Attorney John Scott, called numerous witnesses, including a number of young people who were in the pub when Mr. Moses, a 21-year-old Ajax resident and a Durham College graduate, was shot in the chest in the midst of a dispute involving several young men.

Witnesses said they watched a group of young men alight from a flashy SUV limousine and stroll into the student centre at Durham College on a night when a popular hip hop radio station was holding a live-to-air broadcast from the bar. Leading that contingent was a charismatic young
man in a basketball jersey who claimed to be a famous rap artist from Buffalo.

That young man, whose image was caught on security cameras at the college, was Mr. Belic; his distinctive cornrow-style braids on the video were the same as he wore in court each day, and a large cross-style necklace -- which some witnesses recalled seeing -- is seen around his neck in the video images.

Witnesses said Mr. Belic's group strode into the pub, appearing to intentionally bump into other patrons including Mr. Moses, a popular rugby player who had gathered with friends following an athletic banquet at the college that night.

Words were exchanged and Mr. Belic's group moved on, but witnesses said tensions between the two groups continued to simmer. The young men came together again at the front doors of the pub; in the midst of a melee that included pushing and shouting shots were fired and Mr. Moses
sank the floor clutching his chest, mortally wounded.

Chaos erupted as people poured from the pub. Security video shows Mr. Belic and his friends, one of whom had been shot in the leg, fleeing the pub.

They piled back into the limousine and instructed the driver to head back to Toronto. Durham cops spotted the vehicle on the westbound Hwy. 401 and trailed it to Scarborough, where they made a gun-point traffic stop. Mr. Belic was one of two young men who leapt from the car and
took off. He wasn't captured, but police seized the basketball jersey -- smeared with Mr. Belic's friend's blood -- and a drinking glass that bore his DNA.

Mr. Belic was charged with the murder in the fall of 2004 after an investigation by Durham homicide cops that included taking statements from some of the young men who rode in the limo with Mr. Belic that night. On the witness stand at this trial two of those young men
claimed not to recall events of the fateful evening. That led Mr. Scott to apply to the court to play videotaped statements made to police in 2004 for the jury.

In one statement a young man said he'd seen Mr. Belic with a .9-mm handgun he kept in his waistband that night.

"This is what I'm walking with today," Mr. Belic was said to have declared as he showed off the weapon.

The case was by no means a slam-dunk, as none of the witnesses could claim to have seen Mr. Belic with the gun inside the pub, and no one saw who the shooter actually was. But the Crown methodically took the jury through a veritable mountain of circumstantial evidence that put
Mr. Belic in the midst of the dispute that led to Mr. Moses's shooting, and connected him to the murder weapon, which was eventually seized by Toronto police investigating another case.

Court proceedings resume Tuesday when Justice Glass will hear a victim impact statement from Mr. Moses's mother, Thourla, who has faithfully attended this lengthy trial -- as have Mr. Belic's mother and several other relatives and supporters.

Mr. Belic's lawyer, Laurence Cohen, has not indicated if he will be ready to proceed with submissions on sentencing Tuesday. The mandatory term for second-degree murder is life in prison with no possibility of parole for at least 10 years.