VANCOUVER — A young drug trafficker who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2011 killing of Branson Kerick Rendell Sanders has had 133 days shaved off of his prison sentence.
Court of Appeal Justice Mary Newbury reduced Shakib Abdiriz Shakib’s sentence to four years and 332 days after the Crown did not oppose him being granted a day and a half credit for every day he served prior to sentencing. Justices Peter Lowry and Edward Chaisson concurred.
When Shakib was originally sentenced, he received one-for-one credit for the 269 days he’d already spent in custody.
He had pleaded guilty on Dec. 5, 2013 to manslaughter in the 2011 death of 20-year-old Branson Sanders of Burnaby and was sentenced in Surrey provincial court on April 10, 2014, to five years and 100 days in prison.
Shakib and Brandon Shiu Nandan were originally charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge. Nandan was sentenced to five years and 169 days in prison.
Sanders had been attacked with a machete at the Nandan family’s house in the 18000-block of 55th Avenue in Cloverdale, over a dispute involving drugs.
Nandan’s parents had been in Edmonton at the time.
He and Shakib were both 19 at the time.
During the attack, Sanders was heard pleading, "Please bro, I’m going to bleed out." His badly burned body was found in a forested area of Robert Burnaby Park on Dec. 2nd, 2011.
Before passing sentence, Judge Michael Hicks read out portions of Sander’s mother’s victim impact statement.
"What was done to Branson shattered by world," Hannele Sairanen wrote. "What is my future without my son?
"I will remain forever inconsolable," she told the court. "Our family is forever broken."
tzytaruk@thenownewspaper.com
