The young hitman who killed Surrey businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik in 2022 apologized to his family Tuesday before being sentenced to life without any chance of parole for 20 years.
While Tanner Fox, now 24, expressed remorse for his role in the targeted execution of the 75-year-old, he would not tell the court who hired him, despite a plea from Malik’s daughter-in-law.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes accepted a joint sentencing submission for the 20-year minimum term made by prosecutor Matthew Stacey and defence lawyer Richard Fowler.
“The degree of moral blameworthiness demonstrated by the extensive steps to prepare for — and then escape — what was in fact, an execution of Mr. Malik, as well as the disturbing nature of that execution itself amply support the period of parole ineligibility that has been recommended,” he said.
Earlier Tuesday, Sundeep Kaur Dhaliwal, who is married to Malik’s eldest son Jaspreet, begged Fox to name those who hired him and co-accused Jose Lopez to “assassinate” Malik outside his business at 8236 128th St. just before 9:30 a.m. on July 14, 2022.
“We plead with you to reveal the names of the people who hired you. This is the right thing to do,” she said in her statement to the judge, while also lamenting the loss of her beloved “Daddy Ji.”
She turned several times to the prisoner’s box to speak directly to the killer, who was dressed in a light-coloured suit with his hair slicked back.
“Mr. Fox, you allowed someone to hire you to take away this positive powerhouse from our lives.”
She also said the Malik family struggles with fear.
“We have been anxious and sometimes even scared. This fear and anxiety comes from not knowing who hired you,” she said.
Fox asked to address the court later in the morning, but did not answer Dhaliwal’s question.
“I know nothing I say will bring him back. I’m sorry for the role I played in this crime,” Fox said, reading from a piece of paper. “Not a day goes by that I don’t feel remorse for my actions. Three years ago, I was young, and I’ve grown to see the error of my ways.”
The courtroom was packed with relatives and supporters of Malik, a controversial figure who was acquitted 20 years ago in the 1985 Air India bombing case. He was one of the founders of Khalsa School and Khalsa Credit Union, just some of the charitable work he did for the community, Dhaliwal noted.
Fowler told Schultes his client was adopted from Thailand by an Abbotsford couple and was a good student before slipping into a life of crime. He said Fox’s decision to plead guilty to second-degree murder in October was a sign of the strength of the prosecution case, but also a sign that his client wanted to take responsibility. Fox was originally charged with first-degree murder.
Schultes summed up details from the agreed statement of facts entered at the October hearing and cited again by Stacey Tuesday.
Schultes said Fox and Lopez, who also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, “were hired and paid to commit the murder using a stolen vehicle that had had its licence plates changed.”
“He drove to Mr. Malik’s business on 128th Street in Surrey on the morning of the offence and waited for him to arrive for work,” Schultes said. “When he did so, they approached his vehicle and fired a total of seven shots at him at close range, causing his death. There were employees of Mr. Malik’s business and of other businesses in the same complex outside at the time, and they fled in response to the shooting.”
The two men escaped in a Honda CRV they had been driving, then burned the vehicle in a nearby laneway and drove off in an Infiniti they had left parked in the area.
Police later searched residences linked to the two men and recovered a Puma backpack that contained masks and gloves with the DNA of both men on them, the two firearms used in the murder, plus ammunition magazines.
At Lopez’s New Westminster apartment, police found $16,485 in cash and his cellphone on which there was “a video from July 16, 2022, that depicted a hand fanning out $100 bills onto a carpet,” Stacey said.
Fox’s cellphone, seized at his Abbotsford home, also had a photograph taken the same day “of a large amount of $100 bills.”
Schultes also said the victim impact statements read by Dhaliwal and Malik’s daughter Kirat showed how much those close to Malik continue to suffer.
“They each movingly described Mr. Malik’s integral role in their family unit, his significant contributions to his greater community, and the irreplaceable loss that his murder has caused in their family,” Schultes said. “It is still clear that the impact of this offence on those left behind has been very severe.”
Lopez had been scheduled to be sentenced Friday, but the date has been postponed.
The absence of information about who hired the hitmen reflects a trend in B.C. where shooters in contract killings have been pleading guilty to lesser charges without providing any details about who hired them.
Malik, a one-time supporter of the separatist Khalistan movement, was acquitted of murder in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people, as well as a second bombing that left two Japanese baggage handlers dead.
X.com/kbolan