Rajinder Soomel killing: arrests made in 2009 Cambie Street case
Colin Stewart and Kevin Jones have been charged with first-degree murder
Vancouver police have arrested and charged two men with first-degree murder in the 2009 slaying of Rajinder Soomel.
In a statement released Monday, police said they believed 32-year-old Colin Victor Stewart and 35-year-old Kevin James Jones gunned down Soomel on Sept. 29th, 2009 near Cambie Street and West 19th Avenue in a gang-related slaying that went wrong.
Soomel was not, police believe, the intended victim and just happened to be, "in the wrong place, at the wrong time".
Soomel was living in a half-way house in the neighbourhood, having been released on released on parole the previous August. He had been convicted of plotting to kill a man who implicated his younger brother in the murder of Indo-Canadian Times founder Tara Singh Hayer in 1998.
Upon Soomel's release, the parole board said the threat of his being killed was very real, and his presence compromised the safety of the community because of the possibility of violent retribution.
The man the accused are believed to have been planning to target the night Soomel died, Randy Naiker, was informed by police at the time that his life may be in danger.
Naiker was killed in Port Moody on June 25, 2012 and his death is still under investigation, police said.