The Leader-Post from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada • 56

D12 Crime The Leader-Post Regina July 4, 1985 Hell's Angels inquest stalled by challenge Defendant given seven life terms a i Crime Johnson noted that more-than 60 of Ngs friends, relatives and acquaintances wrote the court asking to be lenient in sentencing. But Johnson said those people apparently had forgotten the bloody nature of the crime, the fact Ng fled afterward and eluded police for more than a year before his capture. No, Mr. Ng, in this court's opinion you are not the good, nice young man described in so many letters the court received, the judge said. Your conduct manifested a deliberate cruelty to victims." Ng, the son of a Seattle-area Chinese restaurant owner, was acquitted April 18 of 13 counts of first-degree murder.

Jurors said they believed Ng was under duress during the crime, but they still convicted him of the lesser offences, which included crimes of. 13 counts of robbery. Ng also was convicted of second-; degree assault in the wounding of lone survivor Wai Chin. Ngs two co-defendants, Willie Mak and Benjamin Ng, no relation to Tony, were tried in 1983 and convicted of aggravated first-degree murder. Mak was sentenced to death; Ben Ng to life in prison without parole.

Tony Ng, who had no prior criminal record, testified Mak threatened him with death if he didnt go along on the robbery. He said he had no idea people would be killed. The young Hong Kong immigrant fled Seattle shortly after the massacre and eluded police until last October, when he was captured in JOLIETTE, Que. (CP) An inquest into the slaying of six Hell's Angels was postponed Wednesday after a lawyer representing five bikers held as material witnesses challenged the competency of the coroner. Lawyer Leo-Rene Maranda has petitioned Quebec Superior Court to disqualify Judge DArcy Asselin from heading the inquest, saying Asselin was not properly sworn to act as a coroner in the case.

Asselin adjourned the inquest until at least next Monday. Marandas petition asking that Asselins appointment be declared null and void will be heard in Quebec Superior Court in Montreal on Friday. Asselin, a sessions court judge, was appointed by Justice Minister Pierre Marc Johnson last week to head the inquest into the deaths of the six bikers, members of the gang's defunct Laval chapter. The judge said the Criminal Code did not oblige him to suspend proceedings but he felt compelled to do so by long-standing legal traditions and respect for the superior court. Earlier in the inquest, which was delayed by procedural arguments, he turned aside challenges to his authority by saying the ministers appointment justified his presence.

His decision to delay the inquest angered lawyer Jacques Bouchard, who had asked Asselin to release his five clients who are also being held as material witnessses. My clients are being held hostage, Bouchard said. We have five citizens of Quebec who are being deprived of their liberty, we hive five citizens who are going to under the Quebec charter of rights were being violated. Asselin ruled the bindings were justified in the interests of public security, tut ordered guards to ensure they were not causing circulatory problems. Security remained tight at the inquest with a line of policemen standing across the back of the courtroom.

Outside, a police tactical squad armed with sub-machine guns and high-powered rifles guarded the building. Maranda, who asked Asselin to grant bail to his clients, questioned the days only witness, Det. Louis Defrancisco of the Quebec provincial police, on the methods used to locate three of the Angels. He asked how police had learned the bikers, arrested over the past week, had planned to visit New Brunswick in early July. Defrancisco, a homicide investigator, said police obtained the information through electronic surveillance and an informant.

Also on Wednesday, police said they had recently recovered a van they believe was used to take the dead bikers from Lennoxville, 160 kilometres southeast of Montreal, to a wharf at Berthierville on Montreals south shore. Police believe the bikers were killed in the Eastern Townships community before they were dumped in the St. Lawrence River. The van was rented in Sorel. The slain bikers bodies were found by police during a 10-day period in early June.

All had been shot, stuffed in sleeping bags and chained to cement blocks or exercise SEATTLE (AP) Saying he played a major role in Washington state's worst mass murder, a King County Superior Court judge Wednesday sentenced Wai-Chu Tony Ng to seven consecutive life sentences for his robbery and assault convictions in the 1983 Chinatown Massacre. Judge Charles Johnson said the seven consecutive terms would be his recommendation for a maximum term for Ng, convicted of 13 counts of first degree robbery and one count of second degree assault. Johnson said he would recommend a minimum term of 35 years to the Washington State Board of Prison Terms and Paroles. He was sentenced to six concurrent life terms for the other robbery charges and 10 years on the assault charge, also to run concurrent with the other sentences. King County prosecutors had sought a minimum of 54 years for the 28-year-old Ng, while defence lawyer John Muenster asked for a maximum term of 20 years, the lowest possible term.

Johnson sets the maximum sentence. The state parole board later will set the minimum. Because jurors found that Ng carried a deadly weapon during the bloody robbery, the law requires a five-year mandatory minimum for the crimes. Thirteen middle-aged Chinese were executed by gunshots to the head in the Feb. 19, 1983, massacre at the Wah Mee, a gambling club in Seattles Chinatown.

Ngs stood silent and impassive during the sentencing. prison who havent been accused of anything. Neither the lawyers for the bikers or prosecution could say how the adjournment will affect Hells Angels now in police custody, or warrants issued Wednesday for the arrest of 17 others. Quebec Superior Court Judge Gilles Y. Renault was called to Jol-iette Wednesday evening to act as an acting coroner and renew the warrants holding those in custody for 24 hours.

Two Hells Angels members Gaetan Proulx and Gilles Mathieu of Sorel were detained on coroners warrants Wednesday after they answered subpoenas to the Jol-iette court house. Three others, Yves Savoie and Louis Brochu of Sherbrooke and Claude Berger, who plays a trumpet with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, were released after they agreed to appear at proceedings on July 11. Maranda, representing five of the gang members in custody, also argued Wednesday that his clients were being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. He charged the bikers were in pain because the manacles binding their wrists and ankles were too tight. He contended the mens rights weights, Hells Angels trademarks.

Police believe they were killed during a March 30 club gathering because they disobeyed club rules. A seventh body, that of the ex-wife of another disappeared biker, was also found in the river. Police said she was killed about two years ago. The bikers being held were picked up over the past week as part of Operation Outcry, which has seen police sweep Hells Angels hangouts in six cities. Nearly $8 million in drugs and a variety of weapons were seized.

Coroners inquests are held in Quebec to investigate unexplained deaths. Coroners have the power to order material witnesses held in custody and can return a finding of criminal responsibility. The findings are not binding on the Crown. Man cleared in retrial of murder case Everplate Oneida stainless Special order from Eaton's i---ul w. fr BRANTFORD, Ont.

(CP) John Wildman, convicted seven years ago of the hatchet murder of his eight-year-old stepdaughter, was found not guilty Wednesday at the conclusion of a retrial. Loud applause and cheers from a dozen of Wild-mans relatives and courtroom spectators greeted the announcement of the verdict, which came after only about Vk hours of jury deliberation. Wildman has been in jail since his conviction in 1978, but a series of appeals finally saw the Supreme Court of Canada order a new trial on the grounds that evidence was excluded from the original trial which might have led to an acquittal. Assistant Crown Attorney Don Angevine declined to comment on the possibility of an appeal. Walking out of court Wednesday a free man, the 33-year-old Wildman told reporters: I have a grave to visit.

Wildman received the verdict impassively, but before leaving rose to tell Justice W.R. Dupont: Your honor, I made a statement on the stand that I did not hold this court in respect. With the decision today I no longer feel that way and would like to thank the court for myself and for Tricia. The battered and frozen body of Tricia Paquette was found Feb. 19, 1978, near the Grand River, four days after she had disappeared.

She had been struck 19 times in the back of the head with the blunt end of a hatchet. Wildman told reporters outside the courtroom its much too late to find the childs killer. The police started out with me in mind and didnt look anywhere else. Wildman said it was bitterness that kept him going during his long stay in prison, and he even refused a Crown offer that would have seen him plead guilty to second-degree murder with eligibility for parole in 15 years. "They offered me second-degree and 15 years and I said No.

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Flatware (126) Govt employee on fraud charge OTTAWA (CP) An employee of the Indian and Northern Affairs Department has been charged with 14 counts of fraud, breach of trust, forgery and conspiracy following an RCMP investigation into a $25,000 loan given to a Nepean, Ont. man in 1982. Fred Ogilvie, 53, of Ottawa, is scheduled to appear Aug. 9 In provincial court in Hull, for a preliminary hearing into the charges. Ogilvie, a senior project officer with the department, is charged with producing two false documents which allowed the Nepean man to obtain the loan, As well, Ogilvie is charged with breach of trust and fraud against the government for accepting eight cheques from the man between May 1980 and January 1983 for a total of $6,710, Robert Brant, 39, of Nepean, has been charged uttering a forged document, fraud and conspiracy in connection with a $25,000 loan he ob-tanned Sept.

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