INQUESTS CALLED INTO COCAINE, SHOOTING DEATHS

SEPARATE inquests will be held later this year into the deaths of two
men -- one who police shot as he killed his best friend, and another
who died from a cocaine overdose when a condom he swallowed ruptured
inside him.

Provincial chief medical examiner Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra called
Friday morning for inquests into the deaths of Zunga Ramadan Bashir,
24, who died Dec. 31, 2005, after a Winnipeg police officer shot him,
and Randy George Krasnesky, 35, who died March 16, 2007, from an
accidental drug overdose.

The moments leading to Bashir's death remain a puzzle to the city's
immigrant Sudanese community. Winnipeg police went to a St. James
apartment late in the evening of Dec. 30, 2005, following a 911 call.
They found Bashir sitting on top of his best friend, James David,
stabbing him repeatedly in the neck and upper body. Police said that
when Bashir ignored officers' calls to drop his knife, an officer shot
him in the stomach.

David died in the Health Sciences Centre emergency ward an hour later.
Bashir died a few hours later.

Krasnesky died after RCMP officers arrested him in Selkirk on
suspicion of transporting drugs. Police found marijuana on Krasnesky,
who was handcuffed and placed in a cruiser. A short time later, he
told officers he was going to be sick and asked to be taken to
hospital. Police said he became violent, then vomited and became
unresponsive. He was taken to hospital, where he died.

An autopsy found a torn condom with a knot in one end inside his
stomach. The cause of death was acute cocaine overdose and his death
was ruled accidental.

The date and time of the inquests will be set by provincial court.