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Nearly three years ago, Calgarians Gursharanjit Parmar and Joshua Okabe were behind bars facing two first-degree murder charges and a major drug conspiracy allegation.

Today, the pair are free after a Calgary judge ruled their drug charges of conspiring to import 450 kilograms of cocaine from the Dominican Republic should be stayed due to unreasonable delay in their prosecution.

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Since the murder charges were already stayed by the Crown in the fall of 2017, because of a lack of reasonable likelihood of conviction, Parmar and Okabe no longer have any outstanding criminal allegations against them.

In a written decision posted online, Justice Gillian Marriott ruled the 40-month delay between when Parmar, Okabe and a third man, Ricco King, were charged and when their trial was to end this November was excessive.

Marriott said the period, which was solely attributed to the state, was in excess of the 30-month ceiling established by the Supreme Court in the so-called Jordan decision and couldn’t be justified by the Crown.