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.