Two young drug traffickers have been sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Brandon Nandan and Shakib Shakib were originally charged with first-degree murder in the 2011 death of 20-year-old Burnaby resident Branson Sanders but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge after the Crown concluded its case at a preliminary hearing in Surrey provincial court.
Sanders was attacked with a machete, over a dispute involving drugs, at the Nandan family's house in the 18000-block of 55th Avenue in Cloverdale. Nandan's parents had been in Edmonton at the time. Nandan and Shakib were both 19 at the time.
During the attack, Sanders was heard pleading, "Please bro, I'm going to bleed out." His badly burned body was found in a forested area near Robert Burnaby Park on Dec. 2nd, 2011.
During the sentencing hearing Thursday, in Surrey, Judge Michael Hicks noted that Sander's body was so badly burned it had to be identified by his fingerprints, and the cause of his death couldn't be determined.
It is not known who brought his body to Burnaby and set it on fire.
Hicks accepted the Crown and defence's joint submission for a six-year sentence, minus time served. He described the killing as a "grave criminal offence that shocked the community." Before passing sentenced, he read out portions of Sander's mother's victim impact statement.
"What was done to Branson shattered by world," Hannele Sairanen wrote. "What is my future without my son?
"I will remain forever inconsolable," she told the court. "Our family is forever broken."
After the hearing, outside court, Sairanen was not satisfied with the sentence. "Canadian justice, I guess," she told reporters. "Kind of lenient. At least I saw the handcuffs go on."
With time served, Shakib will serve five years and 100 days, and Nandan, five years and 169 days.
Shari Blanthorne, who lives in the Burnaby townhouse complex where Sanders had lived, said the killing has devastated many neighbours.
"Losing Branson was a huge big deal for my children, for all of the kids in the complex," she said. "It's destroyed our community.
"This is just awful.
One of the victim's friends, Luis Ramirez, slammed the sentence. "It's a joke, man."
Hicks found that both Nandan and Shakib are remorseful. He said he took into account "their stated determination to learn from the events."
A Surrey boy, who was 16 at the time of the killing, is set to be sentenced next Tuesday for his role in the crime. His name cannot be published as the Youth Criminal Justice Act shields his identity.
