BY RATTAN MALL
THE judge-alone trial of Jujhar Khun-Khun of Surrey, Michael Kerry Hunter Jones of Gibsons, and Jason Thomas McBride of North Vancouver in the August 14, 2011 gangland slaying of Red Scorpion gang leader Jonathan Bacon, which was supposed to begin on May 1, has been put off until May 15 “to accommodate medical issues with respect to one of the accused.”
Dan McLaughlin, Communications Counsel, Criminal Justice Branch, told The VOICE on Thursday: “We are not providing any information about the nature of those issues or the identity of the affected person.”
However, the affected person is believed to be Khun-Khun. Then-Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of British Columbia (CFSEU-BC) Chief Superintendent Dan Malo told the media back in February 2003 when the three accused were arrested: “Khun-Khun was in the hospital at the time of his arrest where he was recovering from gunshot wounds because of an attempt on his life on January 15, just a few weeks ago.” Khun-Khun had also survived an attempt on his life in September 16, 2011.
McLaughlin said: “The trial will commence on the fifteenth [of May] at which time there is going to be an application brought by the accused to have the charges stayed based on unreasonable delay. At the conclusion of that application, assuming matters are still allowed to proceed, the Crown expects to begin leading evidence on May 24. The trial is currently scheduled to last approximately 10 months.”
Manjinder “Manny” Hairan, 29, who was shot dead on January 15, 2013, in Surrey, is believed to have also been involved in the Kelowna shooting.
Last year, it was reported that Kelowna gangster Shane Timothy Dankoski was secretly sentenced for his role in Bacon murder in January, 2016. He pleaded guilty to one count of “enhancing the ability of the said criminal organization to facilitate or commit an indictable offence” in the murder of Bacon and the attempted murder of four others. Dankoski was an associate of the Dhak brothers.
BACKGROUND
Courtesy of CBC
RECOUNTING the murder of Jonathan Bacon at a press conference back in February 2013, Malo said: “On August 14, 2011, at 2:41 in the afternoon, a group of unknown assailants opened fire at the occupants of a white Porsche Cayenne parked at the entrance to the Delta Grand Hotel and Resort.
“This violent incident rocked the City of Kelowna in an act so brazen that it might have been mistaken for a bad action film. However, for the victims and members of the public who witnessed the events, it was all too real.
“Minutes before, it was a typical summer day in the Okanagan. Families gathered to enjoy the resort – and all that Kelowna has to offer. That peace was shattered when Mr. Bacon was fatally wounded and his four associates were badly injured by gunfire. One of the young ladies Leah Hadden-Watts is now a paraplegic because of the injuries she suffered that day.
“Bacon, [Larry] Amero and [James] Riach were in Kelowna on that weekend as members of a recently formed criminal alliance commonly called ‘The Wolfpack,’ yet all were from distinct criminal groups. Amero was a member of the Hells Angels, Riach, a member of the Independent Soldiers, and Bacon of the ‘Bacon Brothers’ or Red Scorpions.”
Providing the background to the gang warfare, Malo said at the time: “The flashpoint of this gang violence began with the murder of Gurmit Dhak in Burnaby in October of 2010. But the Bacon shooting, as it was commonly called, became a starting point for a cascade of violence we saw repeated throughout B.C. during the last 18 months.”
In December 2010, then-Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu had told the media that the gangland shooting that month outside the Best Neighbours Restaurant on Vancouver’s westside Oak Street in which 10 people, including at least three gangsters with convictions for drug trafficking and violence, were injured was connected to Gurmit Dhak’s execution-style murder on October 16, 2010, at a parking lot of the Metrotown Shopping Centre.
Just a couple of months before that, Abbotsford Police had announced publicly that the notorious Duhre Group – brothers Balraj, Sandip “Dip” and Paul Duhre – had been around since the days of Bindy Johal – had taken over from the Red Scorpions (Bacon brothers) and the UN Gang in the Fraser Valley and that the police were determined to run them out of town.
Bacon’s murder led to an escalation of the gang war: the Duhres, the Dhaks and some United Nations members versus the Hells Angels, the Red Scorpions and the Independent Soldiers.
The following month, Khun-Khun was shot in his vehicle in Surrey. Khun-Khun, an associate of the Dhak group, was seriously injured but survived. The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit’s Gang Task Force, were then compelled to issue a public warning.
They said: “We are issuing this warning to family, friends and others who are linked to these groups and highly recommend they take note of the risks when in contact with the Duhres and Dhaks, including their associates. We have reason to believe these people are being targeted by other criminal groups.”
KHUN-KHUN narrowly escaped death on two occasions. On the night of September 16, 2011, he was shot while in a vehicle in the 10100-block of 144th Avenue of Surrey. He was seriously injured but managed to survive. Sukh Dhak, who was with him, managed to escape unhurt.
And on January 15, 2013, just before 2 a.m., he once again managed to survive after he and Manjinder Hairan were shot in the area of 127th Street and 112B Avenue in Surrey. Hairan was pronounced dead on the scene and the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said that the shooting was “a targeted, gang-related homicide.” Khun-Khun managed to get to hospital.
Khun-Khun has had a history of getting in trouble with the law, starting in 2006.
Before Hairan’s murder, a raft of South Asians were killed:
* Manjot Dhillon, associated with the Dhak gang, on January 13, 2013, in Surrey
* Sukhveer (Sukh) Dhak on November 26, 2012, in Burnaby
* Randynesh Raman Naicker (aka Randy Naicker) on June 25, 2012, in Port Moody
* Gurbinder Singh Toor on May 30, 2012, in Port Moody
* Ranjit Singh Cheema on May 2, 2012, in southeast Vancouver
* Sandip “Dip” Duhre on January 17, 2012, in downtown Vancouver
LAST June, gang expert Staff-Sgt. Lindsey Houghton, Advisory NCO of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit – BC (CFSEU-BC), told The VOICE: “That name [Wolf Pack] still exists and it still represents those groups and those people and those associations all the way back to five years ago – connections through the Independent Soldiers and certain affiliations there and certain affiliations through the Red Scorpions and certain Hells Angels groups. It’s an extension of that or a second or third generation of that. But the roots extend back to that.”
The main opponents of the Wolf Pack, aside from any independent groups or cells that are trying to establish themselves or have established themselves, are groups and allegiances and affiliations of people in the United Nations gang going back five years and some of the second and third generation ones as well as some of the old allegiances and alliances of the Dhak-Duhre days, Houghton said.
