BURST
An Ontario man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter for the February 2022 targeted Surrey slaying of a Brothers Keepers gangster.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather Holmes accepted the guilty plea of Yusuf Kontos on Sept. 18 for fatally shooting Juvraj Jabal in the 16800-block of 104 Ave. on Feb. 8, 2022. A 20-year-old woman who was with Jabal in a vehicle was injured, but survived.
On Sept. 26, Holmes sentenced Kontos, 26, at the New Westminster Law Courts for the manslaughter, as well as an eight-year concurrent term for the aggravated assault of the female victim.
Officers with the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team determined that the shooting had taken place in the 10200-block of 170A Street in Surrey, close to an elementary school. Police said at the time that the hit was linked to the B.C. gang conflict — the long-running feud between rival gangs, including the Brothers Keepers and the United Nations.
Kontos was arrested on Jan. 23, 2024, in Richmond Hill, Ont., and originally charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
IHIT Sgt. Freda Fong said Thursday that the B.C. homicide squad worked with its counterparts in Ontario and “relentlessly pursued all investigative avenues, which led to the identification of Mr. Kontos.”
“As the court proceedings come to an end, we wish for closure upon the victim families,” she said in a statement.
Jabal, 24, had been on police radar for years at the time of his death.
In October 2015, he and an associate got into a car accident near 140th Street and 74th Avenue in Surrey.
Police arrived to find both men had fled on foot, according to a civil forfeiture suit filed by the B.C. government.
“As the RCMP were approaching the accident scene witnesses assisted the RCMP to locate one of the occupants who had fled, Mr. Jabal,” court documents said. He was trying to hide a bag in a nearby bush.
He was arrested for failure to stay at the scene of an accident. Police found more than $4,000 in the bag, two cellphones, “drug smoking paraphernalia,” a cannabis grinder and a latex glove.
The associate and another bag were found nearby. The second bag contained a “loaded 45 calibre handgun” and a clear plastic bag containing 34 smaller bags of heroin, 25 more containing methamphetamine and 11 baggies of crack cocaine, along with 23 white pills in an orange container, according to the civil claim to have the cash forfeited.
The director of civil forfeiture said Jabal was involved in criminal activity, including possession for the purpose of trafficking, as well as possession of proceeds of crime.
Jabal was convicted of trafficking in the 2015 case and sentenced to six months in jail. And he was again convicted in 2018 of trafficking two years earlier and sentenced to 12 months.