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A hearing to determine whether a killer’s 2014 conviction in the Surrey Six mass murder will be set aside because of police misconduct has begun in B.C Supreme Courts.
Cody Haevischer, a member of the Red Scorpion gang, and Matthew Johnston were found guilty in 2014 of six counts each of first-degree murder in the gangland murders of rival Corey Lal, his brother Michael, associates Eddie Barong and Ryan Bartolomeo, and uninvolved bystanders Chris Mohan and Ed Schellenberg.
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Schellenberg, a repairman, was in the suite when the shootings happened and Mohan, 22, lived down the hall from where the killings happened in 2007.
Haevischer and Johnston, who died of cancer in 2012 at age 37, received the mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
In 2022, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that police misconduct during the murder investigation, including officers who partied and slept with potential witnesses, justified an hearing in which witnesses could be called and cross-examined on the officers’ misconduct.
Haevischer then filed for a stay of proceedings because of abuse of process, which led to the hearing that began Monday and is scheduled to run for 15 weeks.
The first witness on Monday was RCMP assistant commissioner David Teboul, who had worked in the police unit that investigated the murders.
Haevischer’s lawyer, Simon Buck, opened with a challenge: “Are you aware the defence is challenging the integrity of the group you belong to?”
“Yes,” Teboul replied.
As Haevisher, wearing a black shirt and pants, his hair cut in a mullet style, sat at the back of the courtroom, separated from the public gallery by bulletproof glass, Buck listed the witnesses he planned to call. They include police officers, and staff from Corrections Canada and the witness protection program.
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Teboul recounted under questioning by Buck the hierarchy, chain of command and staffing of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, which investigated the murders.
Teboul said all four teams that make up IHIT worked on the case in the early days and in all 1,300 officers worked on the case at some time over the years.
At a hearing earlier this year, Justice Martha Devlin ruled that some transcripts from a related lawsuit filed against police officers by a woman known as Jane Doe should be provided to the court despite concerns raised by the attorney general of Canada and the woman’s lawyer.
Devlin noted that Surrey Six investigators had “hoped to recruit her as a co-operating witness,” but one of the officers who was later convicted instead “began a romantic relationship with Jane Doe.”
Buck said the transcript of interviews done with senior RCMP officers during examination for discovery in the Doe suit could have relevance to his case.
The attorney general argued that it had signed undertakings that the transcripts would not be disclosed outside of the Jane Doe case, which has since been settled. And they said the woman’s privacy would be affected if the transcripts were handed over.
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