The young drug dealers who killed 20-year-old Branson Sanders and discarded his badly burned body in Burnaby have been sentenced to six years in prison.
Brandon Nandan and Shakib Shakib, who were both 20 at the time of the 2011 killing, were charged with second-degree murder and indignity to human remains but pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Their sentences were handed down Thursday in Surrey provincial court.
The victim’s mom Hannele Sairanen told reporters the punishment was too light given the suffering they’ve inflicted.
“It’s Canadian justice, I guess,” Sairanen said. “I got my hopes up for a little bit there, I thought the judge was going to give him a little more.”
One of the accused turned around in court last week and apologized to her, but it did little to ease her pain.
“I thought that was kind of not-heartfelt,” she said.
Court heard the killers saw Sanders as a threat to their business and planned the murder for days over cell phone and text. They then lured Sanders to a Surrey basement and stabbed him with a machete.
His body was later found charred beyond recognition in a wooded area south of Burnaby Lake.
“You walk down there and you know that someone you love has ultimately been taken away forever,” family friend Shari Blanthorne said.
Sanders’ family said he was a smart young man who fell in with a bad crowd in high school.
Before his death, he’d spoken of returning to culinary school.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Jon Woodward
