Banking records presented in court suggest the man accused of murdering a 13-year-old Burnaby girl was in the city at the time she went missing.
Ibrahim Ali is on trial for first-degree murder in the death of the girl, whose body was found in Central Park on July 19, 2017, less than two hours after her family reported her missing at about 11 p.m. on July 18, 2017.
Ali has pleaded not guilty.
The girl cannot be identified because of a publication ban.
Rick Mihic, a senior investigator at Vancity, testified at Ali's trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver Wednesday.
In response to a court order, Vancity provided police with Ali's banking records for the period between March 2, 2017 and Oct. 30, 2017, Mihic told the court.
Crown prosecutor Daniel Porte took Mihic through some of those records.
They showed three point-of-sale purchases were made on Ali's account on July 18, 2017, the day the girl went missing, one at a Burnaby FreshSlice Pizza and two others at a Burnaby Chevron.
But the records don't show the addresses of the businesses or the time of day the purchases were made, according to Mihic.
Ali opened the Vancity account on March 10, 2017, nine days after arriving in Canada, according to information presented in court.
The Crown's theory is that Ali and the girl were strangers to one another and that he attacked her on a trail in Central Park, dragged her into the forest and strangled her to death while sexually assaulting her.
The defence has not outlined its theory but has suggested the killer and whoever had sex with the young teen — "either forced sex or sex" — are not the same people.
On Thursday, defence lawyer Ben Lynskey is expected to continue his cross examination of sexual assault expert Dr. Tracy Pickett.
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