Special Report
Editorial
Op-Ed
Opinion
Columns

Politics
Literature
Music
Art & Culture
Sikh Religion
Rights
1984
Books
Education
Business

Entertainment
Lifestyle
Travel
Health
Heritage
Sports
Kids Corner

Panjab
India
Pakistan
South Asia
US of A
Canada
Asia-Pacific
UK
Europe
Middle East
Africa
World
 

Archives
Newsletter
Advertise

Obituaries

Feedback
Contact Us
About Us
Site Map

BC Court quashes life term sentence in Sikh girl murder case
WSN Network

VANCOUVER: Canada's Sikh community is perturbed after a court let free a woman who was convicted of beating and drowning a Sikh teenaged girl in 1997. Reena Virk was brutally beaten under a water-way bridge by some teenage girls and a boy she was hanging out with on the night of Nov 14, 1997. Among suspects were Kelly Ellard and her friends. Ellard, now 25, was  convicted after three trials. But the British Columbia court has ordered a fourth trial. In her first trial in 2000, she was found guilty of seconddegree murder but the verdict was overturned when she appealed. Her second trial ended in a hung jury in 2004. The third trial ended in life term for her in April 2005. 

In overturning her conviction, the court said the trial judge made mistakes in his instructions to the jury over the testimony of a witness named Marissa Bowles. The court said her (Bowles’s) testimony at the trial was not consistent with what she told police 10 days after the tragedy.  

10 September 2008
 

Bookmark with

Reddit    Yahoo     Furl    Delicious