On March 1, 2016, Sunderani was shot multiple times in the chest, abdomen and arms when he arrived back at work from lunch. He was the manager of the Comfort Inn on Silvercreek Parkway.

Sunderani's mother, sister and sister's partner were in the body of the court. They declined to have their victim impact statements read in court and declined speaking to media, but the victim's mother passed a message along through assistant Crown attorney Julia Forward: "two lives have been destroyed." She was referring to her son and to Dosanjh.

Outside the courthouse, defence attorney Julianna Greenspan and her co-council Brad Greenshields said they will be filing a notice of appeal within the next 30 days.

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Closing arguments heard in trial of Raja Dosanjh

Murder trial of Raja Dosanjh underway in Guelph courthouse

Greenspan said the verdict brought "incredible disappointment," not just to Dosanjh and to them, but to his family members who were in the court.

When asked how their client was feeling and why he showed no emotion or reaction to the verdict, she said he acted out of respect.

"Despite the verdict there should be no reaction because there's a true appreciation for the process we are there for," she said, but then added he was devastated.

Month-long trial

The big issue of contention during the trial was where Dosanjh was at the time of the shooting. The Crown and defence agreed on how Dosanjh rented an Infinity QX60 SUV hours before the shooting, paying in cash under another name.

The vehicle’s GPS tracklog showed how the vehicle left the Zoom rental agency in Mississauga, travelled to Dosanjh’s brother-in-law’s house, then to the Comfort Inn in Guelph and then back again to the house. It was kept running the entire time.

Forward argued Dosanjh and his brother-in-law, Dalvir Passi, went to the Guelph hotel, shot and killed Sunderani and then returned to the house.

Greenspan argued Dosanjh and Passi never left the house in Mississauga, but instead handed the vehicle off to two white, balding men, along with a bag of marijuana. She told the court Dosanjh was involved with moving marijuana around Ontario for someone in B.C. and used rented vehicles to do this.

Forward, in the Crown’s closing address, urged the jury to disregard Passi’s testimony outright, calling his account of two white men taking the vehicle “fictitious.”

She also asked the jury to pay little attention to the eyewitness testimony of Kapil Thakar, an employee of the hotel who says he saw the shooter. Thakar described him as a white, bald man, claiming he glanced the top of the shooter's head as he fired on Sunderani.

Throughout the pretrial hearings and the trial there was a strong police presence at the Guelph courthouse. Tactical officers checked everyone who entered the courtroom for weapons.

Early in the trial, Greenspan raised this to Justice Gordon Lemon who ordered officers to let members of the jury walk through without being searched. Lemon also said he would not mention the heightened police presence in court, so not to influence the jury's decision.



