CTV News Edmonton has reported:

Yasin Cetin, a former civilian employee of the Edmonton Police Service, was found not guilty of child luring and sexual assault on Thursday, and the charge involving child sexual abuse materials was dismissed. His lawyer, Zachary Al-Khatib, said the case was a mistaken identity and that records showed Cetin was elsewhere when the alleged assault occurred.

Cetin was charged in March 2025 with sexual assault, luring a child under 16, and making or distributing child sexual abuse materials. EPS began investigating after receiving a report that a 14-year-old boy had been sexually assaulted by a man he met on Snapchat.

Al-Khatib said Cetin was arrested based on a screenshot taken from a video of a sexual encounter involving the boy and an unknown man. “There was a very poor quality still image that was taken off of a video,” Al-Khatib told CTV News Edmonton on Friday. “There’s a momentary glance of a face, and the police believed that that face looked like my client, Yasin Cetin, and the Crown who saw that photo also believed that it looked like my client.”

The lawyer said investigators did not conduct a photo lineup with the victim to confirm the assailant’s identity. During court proceedings, the boy testified that the only sexual encounter took place on the evening of Dec. 3, 2023, Al-Khatib said. He said he was able to show Cetin was with other people elsewhere at that time.

“At 9:33 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2023, Yasin was with a group of his friends enjoying bubble tea, and we have a photograph of that, which is dated and time-stamped,” Al-Khatib said. “We have the friends who are with him. We have his own records of that evening, group chat records from WhatsApp. He was not there.”

Al-Khatib said Cetin cried when the verdict was read Thursday. “Yasin started crying. It was obviously very overwhelming. He’s been living with this for a number of years.”

He said Cetin has faced fallout from the charges since his arrest outside his workplace, where colleagues and other people could see him. “He was arrested outside of his workplace in view of his colleagues, in view of other people. It was publicly humiliating. He’s been publicly humiliated ever since,” Al-Khatib said.

The lawyer said he hopes the conclusion of Cetin’s court matters will allow him to move forward. “I certainly hope this is the end of the road for my client in terms of the criminal aspect,” he said. “This is hopefully the first step in getting his life back.” The report included files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nahreman Issa.