Killer faces local charges

One of the men who pleaded guilty this week to a high-profile killing in Surrey still faces firearms charges in Kelowna.

Jose Lopez, 25, and Tanner Fox, 24, entered guilty pleas to second-degree murder on Monday in BC Supreme Court in New Westminster, on the eve of their trial for the murder of Ripudaman Singh Malik.

Malik had been previously acquitted in the 1985 Air India bombing that killed 329 people.

At age 75, Malik was gunned down in his vehicle outside his Surrey business on the morning of July 14, 2022. Lopez and Fox were arrested two weeks later.

Both Lopez and Fox have extensive criminal pasts and Lopez was out on bail for a handful of Kelowna firearms offences when he killed Malik.

A year prior to the killing, Lopez was arrested and charged with seven firearms offences, along with uttering threats and resisting arrest. The charges stem from a July 17, 2021 incident in Kelowna, although details about what occurred are not known.

Eleven days after he was charged, Judge Monica McParland granted Lopez bail with a $5,000 deposit, and he was released from custody on Aug. 19. The following July, Malik was killed.

Lopez is set to face trial in Kelowna on the firearms charges in March.

Contract killing

On Monday, Crown prosecutor Matthew Stacey told the court that Lopez and Fox were hired to kill Malik, according to reporting by the Vancouver Sun. But the Crown disclosed no details about who hired the pair or for what reason.

In a statement, Malik's family urged investigators to hold everyone involved responsible.

“Their hard work has resulted in some justice for our family. However, the work is not complete,” the family said in the statement.

“Tanner Fox and Jose Lopez were hired to commit this murder. Until the parties responsible for hiring them and directing this assassination are brought to justice, the work remains incomplete.”

The Vancouver Sun reported that following their guilty pleas in New Westminster court on Monday, Lopez ran at Fox, and the two killers fought each other for a couple minutes before sheriffs broke them up.

A sentencing date is expected to be set next week. Second-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for between 10 to 25 years.

Acquitted in 2005

Malik was arrested in 2000 and charged in the 1985 Air India bombing. The flight had departed from Vancouver and was en route to India, via London, when it exploded above the ocean, about 190 kilometres off the coast of Ireland.

It's the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history and was the world's deadliest act of aviation terrorism until the Sept. 11 attacks 16 years later.

But Malik and his co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in 2005 after nearly two years of trial. The nearly 20-year investigation and prosecution cost the Canadian government close to $130 million.