VANCOUVER — A leading member of the United Nations gang, convicted of plotting to murder the Bacon brothers, has been ordered deported from Canada.
Immigration board member Marc Tessler issued the deportation order Friday for longtime gangster Barzan Tilli-Choli.
Tilli-Choli, who came from Iraq in June 1999, appeared before Tessler via video link from Kent prison, where he is serving his sentence for conspiracy to commit murder.
Tilli-Choli sat with his arms crossed wearing jeans and a light blue shirt as Tessler explained he had no discretion but to order the deportation because of Tilli-Choli’s serious conviction and the fact he is not a Canadian citizen.
“I am required to issue a deportation order,” Tessler said.
But while Tilli-Choli has been ordered deported, Canada’s policy is not to remove inadmissible people to Iraq because of the current political strife in the country.
So if the would-be killer is released on parole, he could be in limbo for in indefinite period.
No one representing the federal government bothered to attend the admissibility hearing. Instead, they filed written submissions that were not read out during the proceedings.
Tilli-Choli’s lawyer, Michelle Daneliuk, who addressed the hearing over the phone from Victoria, expressed concern about several pages of the government’s submissions becoming public.
She said the pages of concern contain sort of a recitation of some content of the Correctional Service of Canada report on Mr. Tilli-Choli and it contains some of the circumstances of the index offence.
Tessler agreed to remove some of the government documents from the record.
“I don’t have a problem removing that from the disclosure. I’ll tell you why, it’s because it is absolutely irrelevant to the hearing,” he said.
Daneliuk said her client was not contesting the deportation order.
Tilli-Choli pleaded guilty in July 2013 to his role in the UN murder plot, which continued for months in 2008 and 2009.
Prosecutors said Tilli-Choli, his gang leader Clay Roueche and several others in the UN, participated in human safaris as they hunted the Bacon brothers and their Red Scorpion gang-mates across the Lower Mainland.
Tilli-Choli had photos of the Bacons on his iPhone when he was arrested in March 2009.
He was caught on wiretaps attempting to get a gun for an attack on a limousine the Bacons were in after a January 2009 concert in downtown Vancouver.
“The Pigs gangsters are here, man,” Tilli-Choli was captured saying.
He also said that whoever was in the limo “is gonna get” shot.
A month later Tilli-Choli and others shot up the vehicle of another Bacon associate outside T-Barz strip club in Surrey.
Tilli-Choli was handed a 14-year sentence minus almost nine years as double-time credit for his pre-trial custody.
His net sentence was 63 months, Daneliuk told Tessler.
