Killing of Surrey man a case of mistaken identity, police say
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Updated: November 19, 2009 8:36 AM
Raj Soomel was murdered by gunmen looking to kill a different man, Vancouver police said Wednesday.
Soomel was shot dead Sept. 29 on Cambie Street at West 19 Avenue in Vancouver.
Soomel, a Surrey resident, had recently been released on parole.
A Vancouver Police Department statement said the 35-year-old man "was in the wrong place at the wrong time when gunmen came looking for another target, who was also a parolee staying at the same half-way house [as Soomel]."
The man the hit men were after is currently in jail.
VPD investigators have told him that he was the target and his life could still be in danger.
Soomel was sentenced to four years in prison in March 2008 after pleading guilty to conspiring to murder Hardip Uppal. The judge reduced the sentence by one year to reflect time already spent in jail.
Uppal, the intended target, was willing to testify that Soomel’s younger brother Ravinder “Robbie” Soomel was one of two contract killers hired to murder Surrey newspaper publisher Tara Singh Hayer.
Uppal claimed that the younger Soomel revealed his involvement in the November 1998 murder of Hayer when he (Soomel) complained that a well-known Sikh extremist owed him $50,000 for a contract killing.
“You remember that old man that died?” Ravinder asked Uppal.
“What old man?” Uppal replied.
“The old man in the wheelchair, Hayer. Yeah, me and ‘Butti’ (Daljit Basran). I was the wheelman and Butti did this.”
At that point, Ravinder made the sign of a gun with his hand.
Anyone with information about the murder of Raj Soomel is asked to call homicide investigators with the Vancouver Police Department at 604-717-2500 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
