TORONTO (Reuters) – A fourth person has been arrested and charged with the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijar last year, Canadian police said on Saturday, in a case that has strained diplomatic relations with India.
Canadian police earlier this month arrested and charged three Indian men in Edmonton, Alberta, and said they were investigating whether the men had ties to the Indian government.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) announced Saturday that Amandeep Singh, 22, has been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in Carpenter's death.
IHIT said Singh, an Indian national who resided in Brampton, Surrey and Abbotsford, was already in custody on firearms charges out of Peel, Ontario.
Carpenter, 45, was shot to death in June outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver with a large Sikh population. A few months later, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cited what he said was evidence of possible Indian government involvement, sparking a diplomatic crisis with New Delhi.
Najjar was a Canadian citizen who campaigned for the creation of Khalistan, an independent Sikh homeland carved out of India. The presence of Sikh separatist groups in Canada has long frustrated New Delhi, which has described Al-Najjar as a “terrorist.”