{"id":42193,"date":"2025-01-28T19:10:28","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T00:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/life-sentence-for-hitman-who-killed-suspect-in-1985-air-india-bombings\/28\/01\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T19:10:28","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T00:10:28","slug":"life-sentence-for-hitman-who-killed-suspect-in-1985-air-india-bombings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/life-sentence-for-hitman-who-killed-suspect-in-1985-air-india-bombings\/28\/01\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Life sentence for hitman who killed suspect in 1985 Air India bombings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A hitman who was one of two people who shot and killed a man acquitted in the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight has been jailed for life in Canada without the possibility of parole for 20 years.<\/p>\n

Tanner Fox, 24, was sentenced on Tuesday by a British Columbia Supreme Court judge.<\/p>\n

Fox and Jose Lopez pleaded guilty in October to the second-degree murder of Sikh businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik in 2022. Lopez will be sentenced on Friday.<\/p>\n

The sentencing came after an emotional morning, in which Milik’s relatives begged Fox to reveal who hired him to carry out the murder.<\/p>\n

“We plead with you to reveal the names of the people who hired you,” said Malik’s daughter-in-law Sundeep Kaur Dhaliwal, according to reporters inside the New Westminster courtroom.<\/p>\n

The two men entered their guilty pleas on the eve of their trial for first-degree murder.<\/p>\n

Malik was shot several times in his car<\/a> outside his family business in Surrey, in the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the morning of 14 July 2022. Police found a burnt-out vehicle nearby.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Matthew Stacey told the court that Fox and Lopez planned a “deliberate killing” of Malik.<\/p>\n

“They were financially compensated for killing him,” he added.<\/p>\n

The killing happened more than a decade after Malik was acquitted in the devastating double bomb attack – Canada’s deadliest terrorist attack in history.<\/p>\n

On 23 June 1985, Air India flight 182<\/a> from Canada to India blew up off the Irish coast, killing all 329 people on board, most of them Canadian citizens visiting relatives in India.<\/p>\n

About the same time, a second bomb exploded prematurely in Japan, killing two baggage handlers<\/p>\n

The bombings – widely believed to have been carried out by Canadian-based Sikhs in retaliation for India’s deadly 1984 storming of the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine in the Sikh religion – remain Canada’s deadliest terror attack.<\/p>\n

Following a two-year trial, Malik and his co-accused, Ajaib Singh Bagri, were both acquitted in 2005 of mass murder and conspiracy charges related to the two bombings, after a judge ruled that testimony against them was not credible.<\/p>\n

According to the agreed statement of facts, Fox and Lopez were contracted to kill Malik, but the evidence did not establish who had hired them.<\/p>\n

Malik’s family has urged them to co-operate with police to bring to justice whoever had directed the killing.<\/p>\n

In her testimony to court on Tuesday, Malik’s daughter-in-law said the lack of answers has left the family afraid for their safety.<\/p>\n

“This fear and anxiety comes from not knowing who hired you,” she told Fox. “Are we next?”<\/p>\n

According to Fox’s lawyer, the 24-year-old was born in Thailand and was adopted at age three by parents in Abbotsford, British Columbia.<\/p>\n

“It’s impossible to say where he went awry, went wrong in his youth that took him to this horrible offence,” lawyer Richard Fowler has said.<\/p>\n

In court, Fox stood up to apologise for his actions.<\/p>\n

“I’m sorry for all the pain and hurt that I’ve caused,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A hitman who was one of two people who shot and killed a man acquitted in the 1985 bombing of an Air