Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun

It took more than 10 years and three murder trials, but a gangster who was a suspected Vancouver drug trafficker throughout the 1990s has been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years.

A B.C. Supreme Court jury accepted that Rajinder Kumar Benji plotted the March 6, 1998 murder of Vancouver businessman Michael Singh, strangling him with his own tie before stuffing it down his throat and leaving him in the trunk of his car.

Earlier this year after his first trial on the same charge, a jury found itself deadlocked, forcing Benji to be tried again. Before that, he had been acquitted of another murder.

The verdict closes the books on a decade-long prosecution that saw Benji go through 14 defence lawyers and eventually represent himself at his first trial, cross-examining witnesses including his former wife and a former lawyer.

Their identities have been shielded by a court order.

The brutal strangulation of Singh was not the first murder linked to Benji. Two years before Singh's body was found in a Mount Pleasant alley, Benji was tried for allegedly stabbing his sister's boyfriend -- Parminder Chana -- 53 times because he did not approve of the relationship. His 17-year-old sister was so distraught she jumped off the Pattullo Bridge.

But a jury acquitted Benji of that murder.

Benji's name also surfaced as a suspect in the death of his former associate Sanjay Narain, who was thrown off the Cleveland Dam, two months after the Chana stabbing, to which he was apparently a witness.

Benji is not the only member of his family to be charged and acquitted in a murder case.

His older brother Raj Benji was one of several high-profile accused in the murders of gangster brothers Ron and Jimmy Dosanjh in the mid-1990s, including infamous cocaine dealer Bindy Johal. All were acquitted by a jury.

The latest jury of five women and seven men listened to 141/2 days of evidence and argument, then deliberated for four days, before announcing about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday that a verdict had been reached.

Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein imposed the mandatory life sentence on Benji with no hope of parole for 25 years.

But she acknowledged to the convicted killer that his sentence officially began when he was first arrested in September 1998, meaning he could apply for parole in 15 years.

Benji's brother Kam and Singh's brother Brian were among those in the packed courtroom as the first-degree murder verdict was announced.

"He got what is coming to him," Brian Singh said.

"People like him cannot be out on the street. He is too dangerous for society."

Singh said Benji was able to manipulate the courts for years with his delay tactics.

"I am glad we have a system that gave him a run for his money," Singh said. "For 10, almost 11 years, he has made a mockery of our system."

But the case has taken a toll on Singh, who spent seven months coming to court this year for both Benji trials.

Kam Benji called the verdict a joke and said his brother would definitely appeal.

"Here is a guy who defends himself and gets a hung jury. And now he has a lawyer and he gets convicted," Kam Benji said.

"It is not over yet."

He claimed that twice during the last few years of pretrial negotiations, his brother was offered a plea bargain that would have seen him released if he had admitted guilt to manslaughter.

Prosecutor Ravi Hira smiled outside court as he thanked the jury, Benji's lawyer Don Morrison and Stromberg-Stein, who also presided over the earlier jury trial.

"We forget how difficult it is to preside over such matters," Hira said, adding that the verdict is proof "the system does work."

Hira had argued that the evidence -- including the testimony of a confession to his ex-wife, cellphone records and post-offence conduct -- supported a first-degree murder conviction. He said that Benji had kidnapped and killed Singh because the businessman owed $10,000 to Benji's friend Paul Bhatti.

Hira said later Tuesday that the case was historic in that no other accused killer had ever spent 10 years in custody awaiting trial.

"This is the longest case I am aware of in Canada where an accused has gone this long before a verdict. And the delay has not been caused by the Crown or the court," Hira said.

"The delays are not the fault of the justice system."