A man involved in the killing of a businessman acquitted in the 1985 Air India bombing has been sentenced to life in prison in Canada, with no possibility of parole for 20 years according to a BBC report. He will serve a minimum of 20 years.

Tanner Fox, 24, was sentenced by a British Columbia Supreme Court judge on January 28 in a high profile case monitored across India. He and Jose Lopez had pleaded guilty in October 2024 to the second-degree murder of Ripudaman Singh Malik in 2022. Lopez will be sentenced on Friday.

The sentencing followed an emotional hearing, during which Malik’s family urged Fox to disclose who had hired him to carry out the murder.

Fox and Lopez admitted their guilt just before their trial for first-degree murder was due to begin. Malik was shot multiple times in his car outside his family business on July 14, 2022.

Prosecutors described the killing as a deliberate, financially motivated attack. The crime occurred more than a decade after Malik had been acquitted of charges linked to Canada’s worst terrorist attack.

On June 23 1985, Air India Flight 182, en route from Canada to India, exploded off the Irish coast. All 329 passengers and crew, most of them Canadian citizens of Indian origin were killed. Around the same time, a second bomb detonated prematurely in Japan, killing two baggage handlers.

The attacks were widely believed to have been orchestrated by Canadian-based Sikh extremists in response to India's 1984 military operation at the Golden Temple, Sikhism’s holiest site. Following a lengthy trial, Malik and his co-accused, Ajaib Singh Bagri, were acquitted in 2005 after a judge ruled that the evidence against them was unreliable.

According to court documents, Fox and Lopez were hired to carry out the murder, but the identity of those who ordered the killing remains unknown. Malik’s family has called for further investigation to ensure justice is served.