Mohamed Siad selfie video brags about how to secretly record mayor

A selfie videohas surfacedof the man who captured images of Rob Ford smoking crack bragging about how he secretly recorded Toronto's mayor.

"That's how you catch a person slipping, catch a predator or even catch your f--kin' mayor smoking crack, ni--a!" laughs Mohamed Siad into a cellphone camera.

• Video of Rob Ford using drugs released as Sandro Lisi has extortion charge dropped

• Watch the Rob Ford crack video

• Doug Ford rips 'disgusting' move to release video of late brother smoking crack

The video was obtained by CBC News from a Toronto court file that is now public, in a case involving Alexander "Sandro" Lisi.

Siad admitted to friends heusedhis cellphone to recordRob Ford smoking a crack pipe. He then triedto sell the videoto theU.S.news website Gawker.com and to the Toronto Star.

Transcript

(Prepared by Crown prosecutors in the criminal case involving charges of extortion against Lisi.)

MOHAMEDSIAD: God damn, that's some crazy-ass s--t. I justgottaaim the camera towards a person and they don't never, ever know what thef--kyou're doing as long as you're just playing with your phone and just doing some bulls--t, and yeah, that's how you catch a person slipping, catch a predator or even catch yourf--kin' mayor smoking crack,ni--a, ha ha.

Video released after publication ban lifted

Police found the selfie recording on Siad's laptop along withthevideo file showing Rob Ford smoking a crack pipe. The laptop was seized in a raid byToronto police in a crackdown on gun and gang activity in the northwest of the city.

The scandal around the video sparked an intensiveinvestigation dubbed Project Brazen that involved wiretaps andaerial surveillance, as well asphone-tracingofthe mayor and his associates.

Ford was never charged. However,his friend and occasional driver, Lisi, was charged with extortion overhis attempts to retrieve the cellphone video.

Siadwas called to testify at the preliminary hearing forLisiin the spring of 2015.

Siadtold the court he didn't recall how either video was taken, and couldn't remember whether he'd owned a laptop. He also denied knowingLisi, Rob Ford or any of the household members at 15 Windsor Rd.

At one point there was muffled laughter in the courtroom at Old City Hall afterSiadsaid, "I don't recall" before the Crown had finished asking a question.

The judge instructedSiadto wait until the prosecutor had asked a question before answering.

Siad, who was arrested as part of a sweep of gang suspects in 2013 known as Project Traveller, was sentenced in July 2015 to eight years in jail for trafficking guns and drugs.

The extortioncharge against Lisiwas dropped Thursday, paving the way for the lifting of the publication ban on the crack video and its public release more than three years after Siad shot it.

In court on Thursday,the Crown said the case againstLisiwas weakened because the two men he was accused of threatening,LibanSiyadand MohamedSiad,didn't co-operate during the preliminary hearing.

Ford died of cancer in March.