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A hired hitman who killed former Montreal boxer and Mob enforcer Eddie (Hurricane) Melo 18 years ago has been denied a release from a penitentiary as he continues to serve his life sentence for murder.

The Parole Board of Canada turned down Charles Gagné’s request, in part, because of his own admission that he might become a walking target when he gets out. After he was arrested for killing Melo, Gagné became a prosecution witness and testified against the man he claimed had hired him for the hit carried out in Mississauga on April 6, 2001.

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Gagné admitted he was hired to kill the 40-year-old former boxer but he also shot and killed Melo’s cousin, Joao Pavao, because he was seated inside Melo’s vehicle when the hit was carried out.

Melo was born in Portugal and his family moved to Canada when he was six. He started his boxing career in Montreal and turned pro at 17 years old after producing an impressive record as an amateur with 93 wins and four losses. He was Canadian middleweight champion in 1979 and quickly became a favourite of Montreal boxing fans. In 1986, a provincial task force headed by a Quebec Court judge that probed the sport’s ties to organized crime revealed Melo had been hired as a driver and bodyguard for Frank Cotroni, the now-deceased leader of a once powerful Mafia clan in Montreal.