The killing of two men and disabling of a third in a Toronto courtroom 11 years ago was “a blunder,” the man who fired the shots told a jury.
Kuldip Singh Samra, 47, had called the shootings on March 18, 1982, “an unfortunate incident” or “a mistake” since his trial on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder began Oct.’s. Crown counsel Uriel Priwes asked Samra to explain the shootings.
“You killed Fonseca, you killed Pannu, and you crippled Tatla for life. In what way is it a mistake?” Priwas asked in cross-examination.
“It was a blunder,” Samra said, “It should not have happened. It was a terrible, desperate mistake, I do not have words to express, and it was a horrible thing.”
He said he lost his patience and shot up the Osgode Hall courtroom after a judge ruled against his motion to stop the elections at the Shiromani Sikh Society Temple on Pape Ave.
Toronto lawyer Oscar Fonseca, 51, was acting for the opposing faction, Bhupinder Singh Pannu was watching in the courtroom and Amarjit Tatla was in charge of the elections when the bullets from Samra’s .357 Magnums ripped through their bodies.
Samra said he brought the gun into the courtroom because he intended to shoot himself there to draw the community’s attention to his insistence that the temple’s voter registration had been rigged.
Samra said he held no bad feelings toward Tala.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 3, 1993
