On Monday, June 12, 2023, at approximately 6:30 p.m., police responded to reports of an injured male in an alley in the area of Allard Boulevard SW and Arthurs Crescent SW in Edmonton. Upon arrival, 21-year-old Osama Ali was located deceased. An autopsy completed by the Edmonton Medical Examiner on Wednesday, June 14, 2023, determined that Mr. Ali died of gunshot wounds. The manner of death was deemed homicide.
On Sept. 12, 2023, Edmonton Police Service (EPS) homicide detectives requested a Canada-wide warrant for 23-year-old Joseph Chlala for second degree murder in relation to the murder of Mr. Ali.
On Monday, August 5, 2024, the EPS was notified that Chlala was arrested by the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Police located in Akwesasne, NY. The Ontario Provincial Police subsequently took custody of Chlala after he was deported from the United States.
“The OPP is a partner agency on the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST). Maintaining border integrity is only one aspect of the BEST mandate. The cross-border cooperation, coordinated efforts and partnerships that exist between law enforcement in Canada and the United States play an integral role in occurrences such as this,” says OPP Detective Inspector Rob Johnston.
“Today, our communities are safer thanks to great police work and the entire country being on the lookout for Joseph Chlala. Together, we can make our communities safer,” says Maxime Langlois, Executive Director of the Bolo Program.
“We are grateful for the awareness that the Bolo Program created around Chlala,” says Det. Bryan Macaulay from the EPS Homicide Section “This is also another great example of law enforcement agencies working together to find a suspect wanted for murder, regardless of our jurisdictional borders.”
The Edmonton Police Service partnered with the Bolo Program in efforts to locate Canada’s most wanted suspects, including Joseph Chlala.