A former Burnaby basketball star-turned-hired-hitman should have nine to 10 years tacked on to an earlier sentence after admitting he trafficked dozens of firearms in 2006, B.C. Supreme Court was told Wednesday.
Crown prosecutor Jeremy Hermanson said even though Aleksan-dar Radjenovic is already serving an 18-year term for plotting three murders, an additional consecutive term in the gun case would deter others from firearms trafficking.
He told Justice Bruce Butler that if the guns sentence is "concurrent" with the earlier term, Radjenovic would effectively face no consequences for his leading role in the scheme to sell illicit firearms to gangsters.
"A concurrent sentence, as suggested by Mr. Radjenovic, would ignore Mr. Radjenovic's culpability for the weapons trafficking," Hermanson said.
"It would leave that offence, in the Crown's submission, unpunished."
He also noted that Radjenovic has filed an appeal of the 18-year sentence handed down last summer by Justice Kathleen Ker in New Westminster Supreme Court.
"So now your lordship is being asked to formulate a fit sentence on shifting sand," he told Butler.
The now-28-year-old was first arrested in the fall of 2006 as part of a Gang Task Force crackdown on fire-arms trafficking. At the time, the GTF said more than 500 guns had been seized from Radjenovic - then the owner of the Royal Sportsman shop in Burnaby - and his co-accused.
While out on bail in the gun case, he was arrested in June 2009 and charged with conspiracy to kill three gangsters, including Sandip Duhre, who was gunned down in the Sheraton Wall Centre last month.
A man he had approached to do the hits, for which Radjenovic had been contracted, agreed to become a police agent. Radjenovic eventually admit-ted his guilt in the murder-for-hire cases and was sentenced last July.
Hermanson argued that Radjenovic was close to being the "worst offender" and deserved the maximum 10-year sentence.
"All of his crimes, including the trafficking, put innocent people at risk," he said.
"Mr. Radjenovic breached the trust of the state by placing guns in the hands of criminals."
Radjenovic's lawyer Michael Klein argued Wednesday that a fit sentence in the firearms case would be seven years to be served at the same time as the other term.
He noted the judge in the other case did not give him consecutive sentences on all the charges before her because she said it would be "unduly harsh."
Klein said his client settled well in Canada after coming in the mid-'90s as a refugee from the war-torn former Yugoslavia.
"He comes from a very tumultuous life," Klein told Butler.
"He comes to Canada and on all fronts does very, very well."
Radjenovic was a basketball star at Burnaby South secondary before get-ting caught up in the criminal life as a young man.
"This is a life that has been wasted in many respects," Klein said.
"It is a life that should be much better."
Butler said he would hand down his sentence on March 2.
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