Canadian court jails man to life for killing former suspect in 1985 Air India bombing

Ottawa: A Canadian court has sentenced a 24-year-old man to life after he pleaded guilty to the killing of a Sikh businessman, a suspect in the 1985 Air India bombing who was later acquitted, according to local media reports.

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge on Tuesday sentenced Tanner Fox to life with no parole for 20 years for killing Sikh businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik, the CBC news reported.

On July 15, 2022, Malik was shot dead while he was sitting in his car in Surrey, British Columbia. Malik and co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted of mass murder and conspiracy charges in 2005 related to the Air India bombing.

Two weeks after Malik's murder, Canadian police arrested Fox, a resident of Abbotsford, British Columbia, a city about 75 kilometres east of Vancouver, and accomplice Jose Lopez, from the Vancouver suburb of New Westminster.

They pleaded guilty in October last to the second-degree murder of Malik. Lopez will be sentenced on Friday.

Citing prosecutors, the Global News on Tuesday reported that the two men were hired and paid to kill Malik, but they have not revealed who they believe hired them.

Malik’s family urged Fox to reveal who hired him.

“I’m asking both Mr. Fox and Mr. Lopez to do the right thing,” Jaspreet Singh Malik, Malik’s son, was quoted as saying by the Global News.

“Tell the RCMP who hired you. Let those people be brought to justice. We hope and pray that the RCMP continue this work and search down and find and bring to justice those people who hired Mr. Fox and Mr. Lopez.”

The bombing of Air India flight 182, flying from Canada to India, off the Irish coast killed all 329 people on board, most of them Canadian citizens visiting relatives in India. The bombing is among the worst terrorist attacks in Canadian history and the history of the airline.

The plane was flying 31,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean when a suitcase bomb exploded in the front cargo.

Another bomb was meant to be planted in an Air India flight scheduled to take off from Japan, but it exploded at Tokyo’s Narita airport, killing two baggage handlers.

Malik was previously charged with multiple offences in connection with the Air India bombing but was acquitted alongside another suspect in 2005.