20-year-old suspect in Boisclair death was on probation

A 20-year-old man facing first-degree murder charges in the stabbing death of Andre Boisclair was on probation from two recent robbery convictions.

Mutiur Rehman is appearing in Ottawa court Monday after he was arrested just before noon on Sunday.

He was initially charged with second-degree murder, but the charge was upgraded to first-degree murder within a few hours of his name being released.

Rehman is charged in connection with the death of the 37-year-old Boisclair at 494 Somerset Street West early Saturday morning.

• Ottawa police have Boisclair murder suspect in custody
• Murder investigation underway after death on Somerset Street

Court records show Rehman was convicted of robbery in April 2012. He was sentenced to five months in jail, a year of probation and ten years of weapons prohibition.

He was again convicted of robbery in January of this year, sentenced to 150 days in jail and another years probation.

On top of that, Rehman has two sets of outstanding, unrelatedcharges fordrug trafficking and breaching probation filed July 30 and Aug. 22 of this year.

He is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 18 for his next appearance related to the first-degree murder charge.

Police 'quite confident' death wasn't linked to testimony

Boisclair had admitted in court to driving a getaway car after the May 1997 murder of Douglas Earl Joe.

His refusal to testify in the retrial led RCMP to issue a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest in 2008.

In the warrant, RCMP said Boisclair was a longtime bank robber and the son of a prominent Ottawa Outlaw, a local biker gang.

However, police sources told CBC News Sunday theyre quite confident his killing had nothing to do with his past decisions to testify against his co-accused.

The Ottawa police investigation continues and anyone with information is asked to contact either their major crimes unit at 613-236-1222 extension 5493 or Crime Stoppers at 613-233-8477.