3rd man pleads guilty to Vancouver gangland execution

A third man has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the 2012 killing of a high-level gangster in downtown Vancouver.

A third man accused in a brazen gangland shooting at Vancouver’s Sheraton Wall Centre in 2012 has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder.

The BC Prosecution Service confirmed that Dean Wiwchar entered the plea Thursday in B.C. Supreme Court.

In January 2012, 36-year-old Sandip Duhre — a former associate of the Bacon brothers and an ally of the United Nations gang — was gunned down while sitting in a restaurant at the downtown hotel. The daylight shooting sent terrified patrons fleeing or diving for cover.

One of Wiwchar’s co-accused, Rabih Alkhalil, was convicted in absentia of first-degree murder in August 2022 after escaping from the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam. After more than three years on the run, Alkhalil was captured in Qatar last month.

Another co-accused, Hells Angel Larry Amero, was convicted alongside Alkhalil of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

It was not the first time Wiwchar and Alkhalil had been convicted in a killing.

Six months after Duhre’s murder, Toronto man Johnny Raposo was shot four times in the head while sitting on a patio in Little Italy.

Both men were among four people convicted in that case, with prosecutors alleging Wiwchar was the gunman.

Wiwchar is scheduled to return to court Nov. 14 for sentencing.