PITTSBURGH — New video obtained exclusively by Channel 11’s Rick Earle on Thursday shows the moments leading up to the shooting of a Pittsburgh cab driver last November.
In the early-morning hours of Thanksgiving Day, cab driver Hakin Ghorbal was hit twice in the back as a passenger he just dropped off opened fire. In the newly released video, Ghorbal is seen dialing 911 as he continues to drive away from the shooter.%
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“I'm a cab driver. I drop off a customer, and he shot me,” Ghorbal says in the recording captured by the cab’s video surveillance system.
Ghorbal speaks little English, but police and paramedics eventually were able to locate him and administer help.
In court Thursday, Ghorbal came face-to-face with the man accused of shooting him, Anthony Mohamed.
Prosecutors played the surveillance video in court, along with the conversations that led to the confrontation.
Ghorbal picked up Mohamed at the River’s Casino on Pittsburgh North Shore and took him to Hazelwood. Mohamed was not happy about the price of the cab ride.
“It should be at least like $10 or $13. It shouldn't be $20,” the passenger says in the recording.
During the ride, the men’s conversation also took a strange turn after Mohamed asked Ghorbal if he was from Pakistan. Ghorbal responds that he’s from Morocco. Mohamed says he was Christian but had been judged by his name.
“The (expletive) with the ISIS in Paris going on. Man that (expletive) already in America. No matter what. It's already here,” the passenger says in the recording.
Ghorbal testified that he felt uncomfortable with the conversation, but he respected the passenger’s freedom of speech.
Ghorbal said that after arriving in Hazelwood, he waited for the passenger to get his wallet to pay him, but instead the man returned with a gun and began shooting.
Mohamed is charged with attempted murder. His trial will continue Friday at the Allegheny County Courthouse.
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