Canada: Killer of Air India bombing suspect gets 15-year jail term in separate murder case

TORONTO: A contract killer, who is already serving a life term for the murder of a former suspect in the Air India Kanishka bombing, has been sentenced to an additional 15 years in prison by a Canadian court in a separate case involving a fatal shooting, according to a media report.

Tanner Fox, 25, was sentenced on Wednesday after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of 41-year-old Chad Colivas of Abbotsford in British Columbia, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported on Friday.

Police said Colivas was found with gunshot wounds at his home on March 21, 2022, and later died of his injuries.

Fox was arrested in 2023 along with 30-year-old Laetitia Acera. Acera pleaded guilty to break and enter and was sentenced to four years in prison, followed by two years of probation, while Fox pleaded guilty to manslaughter with a firearm in April this year.

Less than four months after Colivas' killing, Fox shot dead Sikh businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik on July 14, 2022, while he was sitting in his Tesla at a business park in Surrey, British Columbia.

Malik was one of the main accused in the 1985 Air India Flight 182 "Kanishka" bombing executed by Canada-based Sikh separatists. All 329 people, including 268 Canadians, 27 British citizens, and 22 Indians on board the flight, were killed in the terror attack.

Fox later pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Malik, who, along with co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in 2005 after a Canadian court ruled there was insufficient evidence to convict them in the terror attack.

Inderjit Singh Reyat, who admitted to assembling the bombs, was the only person convicted in connection with the terror attack. He was later released in 2016 after serving nearly two-thirds of his sentence.

In 2025, Fox was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 20 years for Malik's killing. During sentencing, he told the court he had been "young and dumb" when he carried out the contract killing.

Canadian police and prosecutors have not disclosed who they believe hired Fox to assassinate Malik.