Dear Editor:
Re: Supreme Court Rules on 'Mr. Big' Stings, Aug. 6
Defence lawyer, Jay Straith, like many of his ilk, is salivating at the possibility of an overturned conviction for West Vancouver murderers Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay.
While there is no doubt that "Mr. Big" stings have to be monitored very closely to ensure fairness to the accused, the thought of coldblooded killers like Burns and Rafay going free sends shudders down my spine.
Straith says "I have yet to see one of the "Mr. Big" Stings where they got Albert Einstein being trapped into it." Rafay and Burns were highly intelligent individuals that meticulously planned the cold-blooded murder of Rafay's parents and his autistic sister, beating them to death with a baseball bat. They went to great lengths to plan an alibi and swiftly fled to Canada when police in the U.S. wanted to question them more closely.
Were they abused children, was this someone lashing out at perceived grievances?
No, it was purely and simply greed - a plan to obtain the estate of the Rafay family for their own financial well-being.The RCMP is to be congratulated for running many complex and difficult investigations in pursuit of heinous killers that would otherwise escape justice. As a sergeant in the detective office of the West Vancouver Police Department (since retired), I saw firsthand how these sting operations worked. We had occasion to use their services during an investigation and the meticulous planning to "get things right" and ensure admissible evidence was evident.
While I have no difficulty with the courts looking closely at the circumstances of these investigations, I deplore the hyenas in the legal system that look upon this as an opportunity to free thugs that have taken innocent lives for their own benefit.
Stuart Leishman
North Vancouver
