Hitmen to Be Sentenced for Murder of Former Air India Suspect Malik in BC
Today, in a New Westminster, B.C., courtroom, one of the confessed hitmen involved in the murder of former Air India bombing suspect Ripudaman Singh Malik is scheduled to be sentenced.
Last October, Tanner Fox and his accomplice Jose Lopez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Fox’s sentencing is set for today, while Lopez will appear in court on Friday.
Mallik, who had been acquitted of charges related to the 1985 Air India bombing, was fatally shot in Surrey, B.C., on July 14, 2022.
Fox and Lopez, who were both in their early 20s at the time of the murder, were initially charged with first-degree murder within two weeks of the killing.
Although they will face mandatory life sentences for second-degree murder, Crown prosecutors and defense attorneys have jointly recommended a 20-year parole ineligibility.
An agreed statement of facts from the BC Prosecution Service reveals that Fox and Lopez were “hired and paid” for the assassination, but the identity of the person who contracted them to kill the Sikh businessman has not been disclosed.
Malik was gunned down in his Tesla at a business park in Surrey, B.C.
In 2005, Malik and his co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in B.C. Supreme Court of charges stemming from the Air India bombings that claimed 331 lives in June 1985. One bomb exploded over the ocean near Ireland, killing all 329 passengers, while the second bomb went off at Narita airport in Japan, killing two baggage handlers.
A 2005 government report in Canada attributed the bombings to Canadian Sikh Khalistani separatists, including bomb maker Inderjit Singh Reyat, who was found guilty of manslaughter.
