Ripudaman Singh Malik hitman sentenced to life in prison

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Tanner Fox, one of the hitmen, in shooting of Ripudaman Singh Malik was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 20 years on January 28, 2025.
Jose Lopez another person involved in the shooting is expected to appear in court in March of 2025 for sentencing. “B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes sentenced Tanner Fox for second-degree murder in front of a New Westminster courtroom packed full of Malik’s friends and relatives following an emotional morning in which Malik’s daughter-in-law begged the young killer to give up the names of the people who hired him,” CBC reported.
“We plead with you to reveal the names of the people who hired you,” Sundeep Kaur Dhaliwal said as she stood at the front of the courtroom.
Outside the court, Malik’s son echoed Dhaliwal’s comments. He said the sentencing gave a small sense of relief. “But our journey doesn’t end today. People who hired Mr Fox and Mr Lopez still remain at large. But our father’s legacy lives one. In 1986 my father found Khalsa Credit Union and Khalsa School. The first Sikh private school in North America and the largest in BC. These are all the things he did and form large part of his legacy. He was a trailblazer, served the community, and was an active changemaker.”
Jaspreet Singh stressed his father’s leadership roles with the Khalsa Credit Union and Khalsa School. He said that his father was acquitted in Air India Bombing case in 2005. Yet, he said, media writes misleading headlines and wants to refer to his father as Air India Bombing accuse. “Why don’t you refer to him as the man who was wrongfully accused because the judge said there was simply no evidence tending to point to any role he played in that conspiracy?” he said. “In fact, all the evidence shows my father was a man who was committed to education.”
“I’m asking both Mr. Fox and Mr. Lopez to do the right thing,” Jaspreet Singh Malik said as he stood with a number of family members behind him.
“Tell the RCMP who hired you. Let those people be brought to justice.”
Malik was shot on July 14, 2022, at the business complex at 8236 128 Street, Surrey. Police found Malik suffering from gunshot wounds. Despite life-saving interventions, he died at scene. The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) was called in to investigate.
On July 26, 2022, charges of first-degree murder were approved against 21-year-old Tanner Fox and 23-year-old Jose Lopez. Tanner Fox and Jose Lopez were arrested in their residences without incident.
On October 21, 2024, both Tanner Fox and Jose Lopez appeared in the B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster, and each entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder. There is an automatic sentence of life imprisonment for this offence. Crown Counsel and defence counsel made a joint submission that the parole ineligibility period should be 20 years.
“An agreed statement of facts filed with the court paints a picture of the events leading up to the murder, starting with the theft of a Honda CR-V in Coquitlam three weeks before the fatal shooting. A licence plate from another Honda CR-V was stolen the next day and placed on the stolen vehicle. The pair came and went from a residence in Whalley, a 15-minute drive from Malik’s business, which was the site of the murder. They set the Honda on fire and were later traced to an Infiniti G37x registered to Lopez’s sister,” CBC reported.
Prosecutor Matthew Stacey said Fox and Lopez shot Malik multiple times as he sat in his vehicle. “This was a planned and deliberate killing of Mr. Malik,” Stacey said. “And they were financially compensated for killing him.”
Malik’s killing happened more than a decade after Malik was acquitted in the devastating double bomb attack – Canada’s deadliest terrorist attack in history. On 23 June 1985, Air India flight 182 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.
About the same time, a second bomb exploded prematurely in Japan, killing two baggage handlers
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.