A gang associate wounded in a brazen shooting Tuesday afternoon has an immigration hearing in February to see if he should be kicked out of Canada because of his criminality, The 91原创 Sun has learned.
Nebojsa (Nick) Kljajic, 37, was shot while sitting with others inside the Cactus Club restaurant on Kingsway in Burnaby.
RCMP Sgt. Peter Thiessen said the shooting was targeted. 鈥淲e are fairly confident that this has organized crime and gang overtones to it,鈥� he said Wednesday.
While Thiessen did not confirm the victim鈥檚 identity, sources told the Sun that it was Kljajic.
Kljajic and his cousin Zoran Mikulic, who have links to a B.C. gang coalition called the Wolf Pack, pleaded guilty in Saskatchewan in 2010 to possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking and to conspiracy.
The B.C. men were sentenced to two years less a day in jail for the drug conspiracy, which the Crown said involved transporting millions of dollars worth of marijuana from B.C. to Saskatchewan to be smuggled into the U.S.
Kljajic and Mikulic came to Canada from Croatia. While Mikulic got his citizenship, Kljajic did not.
Now his status in Canada is being challenged by the Canada Border Services Agency, which referred his case to the Immigration and Refugee Board.
IRB media officer Melissa Anderson confirmed Wednesday that an admissibility hearing for Kljajic is scheduled for Feb. 18.
She said the hearing 鈥渨ill be a public proceeding, resulting from allegations of inadmissibility made by the Canada Border Services Agency in 2013.鈥�
The sections of the act cited in Kljajic鈥檚 case relate to inadmissibility due to serious crimes, organized crime links and trans-national criminal acts.
Kljajic鈥檚 Saskatchewan conviction was for a number of huge drug transactions between July 2001 and June 2002.
The drug ring used couriers to drive pot from B.C. to Saskatchewan to be smuggled into the U.S. One of the couriers was caught at the border in 2002.
Another B.C. man, Daren Wayne Smith, of Abbotsford, was arrested earlier, convicted and sentenced to six years. His trial heard that Smith worked under the direction of Kljajic and Mikulic.
When Smith testified in his defence in 2005, he claimed he wasn鈥檛 guilty because he was forced to commit the crimes under threat of death from three men identified in court as Nick, Zoran and a Hells Angels associate.
Kljajic was charged in West 91原创 in 2001 with possession for the purpose of trafficking. But the charge was dismissed in North 91原创 provincial court in 2003.
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