Six men have been sentenced to a collective 74 years, seven months and three days in prison after being found guilty of manslaughter in the 2016 shooting deaths of two victims in Vancouver and the confinement of a kidnapping victim in Surrey.
Justice Arne Silverman delivered the sentences in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, calling the deaths “brutal, tragic and unnecessary.”
Samantha Le and Xuan Van Vy Ba-Cao were shot dead.
Silverman ordered an indefinite publication ban on evidence that could identify five witnesses. The court had heard that a witness was taken to a house in Surrey, where he was held for about 45 hours while his captors sought a $1 million ransom that was later reduced to $500,000.
The confinement, Silverman said, was “brutal from the beginning to the end, including ongoing violence of which all were aware, and involved gratuitous violence by some – such as the use of bolt cutters and a blow torch on the victim resulting ultimately in the amputation of a finger.”
Harinam Cox received a prison sentence of seven years, seven months and three days and Shamil Ali was sentenced to 13 years, seven months and two days. Gopal Figueredo’s sentence is 14 years, seven months and a day; Erian Acosta, 10 years, two months and 24 days; Ellwood Bradbury, 14 years, one month and 16 days, and Matthew Stewart, 14 years, two months and 23 days.
The six also received credit for time served, pre-trial. Cox and Ali, 1,608 days credit each; Bradbury, 1,411 days credit; Acosta and Stewart, 1,375 days credit and Figueredo, 1,244 days.
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