Contract Killer Serving Life for Malik Murder Sentenced to 15 More Years

A Canadian court has sentenced a contract killer, already serving a life term for the murder of former Air India bombing suspect Ripudaman Singh Malik, to an additional 15 years in prison in a separate case involving a fatal shooting.

Tanner Fox, 25, was sentenced on Wednesday after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of 41-year-old Chad Colivas of Abbotsford, British Columbia, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported.

Police said Colivas was found suffering from gunshot wounds at his home on March 21, 2022. He later died from his injuries. Fox was arrested in 2023 along with 30-year-old Laetitia Acera, who pleaded guilty to break and enter and was sentenced to four years in prison, followed by two years of probation.

Fox pleaded guilty to manslaughter with a firearm in April this year. The conviction relates to a killing that occurred less than four months before he fatally shot Malik in Surrey, British Columbia.

Malik, a Sikh businessman, was shot on July 14, 2022, while sitting inside his Tesla at a business park. He had been one of the main accused in the 1985 Air India Flight 182 bombing, also known as the Kanishka bombing, in which all 329 people aboard were killed.

Malik and co-accused Ajaib Singh Bagri were acquitted in 2005 after a Canadian court found insufficient evidence to convict them. Inderjit Singh Reyat, who admitted to helping assemble the bombs, was the only person convicted in connection with the terror attack. He was released in 2016 after serving nearly two-thirds of his sentence.

Fox was sentenced in 2025 to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 20 years for Malik's second-degree murder. During sentencing, he described himself as "young and dumb" when he carried out the contract killing.

Canadian police and prosecutors have not disclosed who allegedly hired Fox to assassinate Malik.