The young man who admitted to being one of the paid hitmen who killed Surrey businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik in 2022 has been sentenced to life with no parole eligibility for 20 years.
Tanner Fox, 24, stood and apologized to Malik’s family, moments after Malik’s daughter-in-law and daughter read powerful statements to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes.
Schultes accepted a joint sentencing submission made by prosecutor Matthew Stacey and defence lawyer Richard Fowler.
He said that the lengthy parole ineligibility period is appropriate for the “moral blameworthiness” in “what was in effect an execution of Mr. Malik.”
Sundeep Kaur Dhaliwal, who is married to Malik’s eldest son Jaspreet, pleaded with Fox in court to identify who hired him and Jose Lopez to “assassinate” the 75-year-old outside his Surrey business 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, also lamenting the loss of her father-in-law.
When Fox was asked to address the court later in the morning, he expressed regret but offered no more details of who was behind the murder plot.
“I know nothing I say will bring him back. I’m sorry for the role I played in this crime,” Fox said. “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 terrorism case.
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 in October was a sign of the strength of the prosecution case, but also a sign that his client wanted to take responsibility.
Stacey noted the agreed statement of facts presented earlier in court.
“On July 14, 2022 at approximately 9:24 a.m., Mr. Fox and Mr. Lopez acted together to shoot and kill Mr. Malik as he sat in his vehicle in the parking lot of his business,” Stacey said. “They shot him multiple times. This was a planned and deliberate killing of Mr. Malik, and they were financially compensated for killing him.”
He noted both were originally charged with first degree murder, but pleaded guilty to second-degree.
The killers laid in wait for Malik as he parked his red Tesla in front of his company Papillon Eastern Imports.
“Mr. Fox and Mr. Lopez acted together to shoot Mr. Malik. Two handguns were used in the killing of Mr. Malik, and seven shots were fired at close proximity from outside the driver’s side of the Tesla,” Stacey said. “The shots struck Mr. Malik from his left side, and he was killed while he was sitting in the driver’s seat.”
The two men escaped in a Honda CRV they had been driving, but 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.”
The absence of information about who hired the hit men reflects a trend in B.C. where shooters in contract killings have pleaded 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