The motive was retaliation for an August 2011 shooting in Kelowna that left Jonathan Bacon dead and Larry Amero with a serious injury.
Larry Amero, left, and Rabih Alkhalil.PHOTO BY COURT FILES
The Wolfpack gang plot to murder rivals Sandip Duhre and Sukh Dhak went on for months and involved sophisticated planning, procurement of weapons and other “tools of the trade,” a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Mark Sheardown said encrypted messages sent back and forth between conspirators, including Hells Angel Larry Amero, show just how many people were involved in the hunt, which “enhances the danger of the conspiracy.”
Sheardown laid out a number of “aggravating factors” for B.C. Supreme Court Justice Miriam Maisonville on Tuesday that he said should impact the sentences handed to Amero and his co-accused Robby Alkhalil — both members of the Wolfpack gang.
Both were convicted by a jury a year ago — Amero of two counts of conspiring to kill both Duhre and Dhak in 2012. Alkhalil was found guilty of Duhre’s murder as well as the Dhak conspiracy. But he escaped from the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in July 2022 and his location remains unknown.
Duhre was gunned down in the lobby of the Sheraton Wall Centre on Jan. 17, 2012 as customers ran for their lives. Dhak was killed in November 2012 outside a busy Burnaby hotel.
“The conspiracies for which Mr. Amero and Mr. Alkhalil are being sentenced are part of a long-lasting gang conflict that has afflicted the Lower Mainland for many years,” Sheardown said.
“The conspiracies took place in the broader context of conspiracies to murder other people as well.”
Investigators at the scene of shattered glass at Vancouver’s Sheraton Wall Centre in January 2012, where Sandip Duhre was shot and killed while having dinner at the Cafe One Restaurant.PHOTO BY WARD PERRIN /PNG files.
Sheardown said it is clear from the messages “that multiple hit squads were available to the conspirators to be used for the purposes of murdering Duhre and Dhak.”
The motive for the murder plot was retaliation for the August 2011 shooting at Kelowna’s Delta Grand Hotel that left Amero’s best friend Jonathan Bacon dead and Amero with a serious hand injury. Two women friends were also injured, while Wolfpack member James Riach escaped uninjured.
Sheardown said Alkhalil sent a message to other conspirators on Sept. 17, 2011 — the day after Dhak and his associate Jujhar Khun Khun were shot and injured in Surrey. Both survived.
“In the aftermath of the botched Surrey shooting, Alkhalil stated he flew in an entire team of ex-military (members) three days after Kelowna,” Sheardown said, quoting the message. “And they’re almost ready with everything. I’ll show people what it’s like to be scared.”
Paramedics tend to Larry Amero after the shooting in Kelowna that left Jonathan Bacon dead.PHOTO BY DON SIPOS /PROVINCE
Another message sent that day to the group that included Alkhalil and Amero said: “We’re a team of 20-plus guys working together to achieve the same goal. We have put together three teams of more than capable people to do what we need. We have purchased, imported and acquired all the tools and knowledge we need to do things properly.”
The message was critical of the failed attempt on Dhak as not all those in the group were informed in advance and the hitmen used “questionable tools.”
“Shot Caller and them were ready and were waiting for me to dispatch them to the best situation I thought would get the job done efficiently by making sure certain subjects were together to assure our chances of getting more than one guy at a time greater,” the person wrote.
“From now on, no one dispatches a team to any location without the knowledge of all other players. If we f–k shit up and the mole gets heated out, it’s gonna suck.”
The message author said the plan was to get six or seven rivals together, “then maybe we dispatch two teams to work together, but not this f–king BS. … Please. Let’s work as a team and strike strategically and proficiently. Don’t want to be the idiots in town that f–k up every job we do.”
Crown Anthony LaBar said the message shows that “the Duhre and Dhak murder conspiracies were carried out for the benefit or at the direction of or in association with a criminal organization.”
The sentencing hearing is scheduled to end Friday.
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