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Witness Who Helped Nab Gill Killers Lauded

A P Kamath

When a judge called five skinheads "moronic braggarts'' and jailed them between 12 and 15 years in the killing of the caretaker of a gurdwara, he also revealed, how the police were able to trace and contact the skinheads. The revelation was perhaps made for the first time.

Nirmal Singh Gill, 65, died in a blood pool after having been kicked and beaten by the five skinheads inside the compound of Guru Nanak gurdwara in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver.

The racially motivated killing which took place in January last year led to the reopening of the debate about teens and racism in Canada.

A witness, who is not an Indian Canadian, came forward to help the police because he had seen Gill helping people irrespective of their ethnic origin, Judge William Stewart said. The witness even went to the extent of becoming a police agent.

"It is both ironic and instructive that the five self-described racists were brought to justice in part because of their victim's willingness to help others without regard to race or faith," he wrote in the judgment.

After the police surreptitiously taped the conversations Nathan LeBlanc, Robert Kluch, Radoslaw Synderek, Daniel Miloszewski and Lee Nikkel and confronted them with evidence, they pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Nirmal Singh Gill, who came to Canada as a political refuge, is survived by a disabled son and wife in Punjab.

The five, members of the White Power neo-Nazi organization, chanced upon Nirmal Singh when they were destroying cars and property in the gurdwara in the early hours of the morning.

Nikkel, 18, and Kluch, 26, were sentenced to 15 years; Synderek, 24, Miloszewski, 22, and LeBlanc, 27 were sentenced to 12 years.

Judge Stewart rejected the defense plea that Nikkel should not get a stiff sentence because he was not even 17 when Gill was beaten up.

Before the murder, he had conducted himself as an adult, the judge wrote. Nikkel was also the first one to assail Gill and kicked him so hard so that Nikkel could become worthy member of the racist group.

Judge Stewart rejected the contention of the defense that the men did not know Gill was Indo-Canadian.

In fact, they took pride in the "cowardly" attack, he said and referred to the tapes in which they boasted about the attack to undercover cops. They also said they were prepared to blow up the gurdwara if the police went after them.

Judge Stewart, who rejected the prosecution plea for life imprisonment, said the sentence takes into account the young age of the accused, their guilty pleas and the regret expressed by Synderek and Miloszewski.

"There is nothing I can do... to compensate for the tragic and senseless death of Mr Gill,'' Stewart said. "I must put aside my revulsion and contempt for the racist views of (these accused) and punish them only for their actions."

EARLIER REPORTS:
Skinhead Killer Pleads for Life
Final Arguments Submitted in Gill Murder Case

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