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Alleged gurdwara killer pleads not guilty

R S Shankar

Over vehement objections by the victim's family and friends, and a demand by the prosecution that a bail be set for $ 100 million, a judge said he had the constitutional duty to release the accused killer of a Sikh leader if he posts a bail that the court sees as reasonable.

The victim's family failed to convince the judge the accused killer could flee to India.

Judge Peter Berger then set a $ 2.5 million bail for Joga Singh Sandher, 35, who used to run a limousine business in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Last week, his attorney, a public defendant, who had said Sandher had no money to engage a private lawyer, had pleaded for $ 500,000 bail.

Sandher pleaded innocent on Friday in the January 23 shooting that claimed Ajmer Singh Malhi, 48, a founder of the gurdwara in El Sobrante. Malhi was a popular mathematics teacher teacher at the Skyline High School in Oakland.

Soon after the murder, some of Malhi's family members had suggested that the outspoken supporter of Khalistan was killed for his political views. But this week they said they were convinced that Sandher had killed Malhi for personal reasons.

According to Sikh community leaders, Sandher, who had returned from India in November following his father's death of cancer, had become religious and begun wearing a turban.

He had sought the permission to address the congregation, ostensibly to discuss his return to the faith and the reawakening of spirituality.

But when Malhi denied him permission because the congregation was taking up other issues, Sandher returned after a few hours with an assault rifle and shot down Malhi and injured another devotee.

Judge Berger, while saying he could not be swayed by the emotions of the victim's family, decided to set a $ 2.5 million bail "because the charges are so serious and the likelihood of guilt is so great".

Though Mark Liss, a Contra Costa County deputy public defender, told the judge that his client has a wife and two children in the Bay area and so could not be considered a flight risk, Malhi's relatives argued otherwise.

They said raising a $ 2.5 million bond may not be difficult for Sandher. Though the judge had ordered Sandher to surrender the passport, they said getting false documents is not so difficult.

Earlier, Tom O'Connor, a Contra Costa County deputy district attorney, and Satinder Malhi, the 20-year-old son of the victim, had urged the judge to deny Sandher bail. O'Connor said Sandher could harm hundreds of witnesses in the case.

"I believe the defendant is a high flight risk, (going by) the sheer nature of the crime and the number of people he put at risk,'' O'Connor said. "He is a severe danger to the community.''

When Satinder Malhi said, "I can't even begin to describe the tremendous pain that this man has caused my mother, my younger brother and my younger sister,'' the judge stopped him from continuing. It was not appropriate to show sorrow at a bail hearing, he said.

Liss told reporters he plans to review a videotaped statement in which the police say Sandher admitted shooting Malhi because he felt the victim had wronged him. Liss said he will consider the insanity defense.

EARLIER REPORTS:
No Khalistan connection in gurdwara shooting: worshippers
Was it angst or a stab at Khalistan?

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