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Kelowna  

Bacon trial pushed back

The long-awaited Supreme Court trial of three men alleged to have shot and killed gangster Jonathan Bacon has been pushed back another seven months.

The judge and jury trial is now expected to begin Nov. 7, 2016, and last up to six months – more than five years after the shooting took place.

According to Crown counsel, the trial, originally scheduled for April 4, 2016, was pushed back to allow sufficient time to deal with pretrial matters.

Bacon was killed in August 2011 when his Porsche Cayenne SUV was riddled with bullets outside the Delta Grand Hotel in Kelowna.

The suspected shooters, Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason Thomas McBridge and Michael Hunter Jones, have all been charged with murder and multiple counts of attempted murder.

Hells Angel Larry Amero was seriously wounded in the shooting, along with Independent Soldiers member James Raich, who fled the scene with minor injuries.

Two women were also caught up in the gunfire, including Leah Hadden-Watts, niece of the Haney Hells Angel chapter president.

Witnesses at the time said a masked gunman fired multiple shots from an automatic weapon before fleeing in another vehicle, which was later found torched in Lake Country.

Lawyers for the accused had tried to have the trial moved out of Kelowna to the Lower Mainland, but were unsuccessful.

The alleged shooters were arrested in 2013 as part of a multi-jurisdictional investigation at locations across the country. Khun-Khun, 25 was arrested in Surrey, Jones, 25 was arrested in Toronto, and McBride, 37, was arrested in Vancouver.



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