Ryan Amit Singh Parmar was identified as suspect in 2013 Surrey homicide
BY KIM BOLAN, VANCOUVER SUN
A Metro Vancouver man charged with possessing a loaded firearm has a right to see other police files alleging his involvement in a 2013 gang murder, a B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled.
Justice Arne Silverman said Thursday that Ryan Amit Singh Parmar needs the additional disclosure by police to fully defend himself on a series of firearms charges.
The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit got a court order to search Parmar’s car for a tracking device on May 1, 2013. At the time, the anti-gang agency believed he was the target of a murder conspiracy.
Officers didn’t find the device, but did locate a secret compartment containing a loaded gun.
At the same time, the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team had a separate investigation into the February 2013 murder in Surrey of Vimal Chand and had identified Parmar as a suspect. Parmar has not been charged in the Chand murder.
Parmar’s lawyer Rebecca McConchie is questioning the validity of the search warrant for the car, arguing it could have related more to the Chand investigation than protecting her client from a murder plot.
She argued she needed more information about the murder investigation in order to properly cross-examine the officer who found the gun.
And she said she needed to know when the special enforcement unit designated Parmar “a provincial tactical enforcement priority.”
Court heard about a Sept. 2013 letter written by an inspector “stating that the applicant is well known to police in the Lower Mainland and is currently embroiled in a gang conflict which has claimed several lives in the last two years in a series of high-profile public shootings.
“As such, Parmar has been identified as a provincial tactical enforcement priority,” the letter said.
Crown prosecutor Mike Huot argued that the additional disclosure being sought by Parmar was irrelevant to the issues raised about the search warrant.
And he said that CFSEU and IHIT are separate police entities, so the homicide squad should not be obligated to disclose its evidence in a case that is not before the courts.
Silverman agreed with the defence that Parmar was entitled to more disclosure.
“I am also satisfied that the two separate teams — IHIT and CFSEU — while distinct for various purposes, there is not a real distinction for disclosure purposes,” Silverman said. “They are both police forces. Fairness at trial issues prevail.”
Silverman ordered disclosure “of the police file on the Chand homicide and information on when the CFSEU designated the applicant a provincial tactical enforcement priority.”
However, he did not grant a more sweeping request for all police information about Parmar over several years, saying it amounted to a “fishing expedition.”
His judge-alone trial on the firearms charges is set to begin Nov. 16.
