Ex-cop angry at charges in biker deaths

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This article was published 26/08/2009 (6129 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LONDON, Ont. — Just told he was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder, an agitated Michael Sandham said the police had it all wrong.

The ex-police officer sighed heavily at the charges while sitting in the back of a cruiser after he was arrested at his Winnipeg home on June 16, 2006.

Sandham was angry he was even being considered as a suspect in the shooting two months earlier of eight Toronto-area Bandidos bikers in rural southwestern Ontario.

Six times he told the police, "I wasn’t even there," the jury hearing murder charges against Sandham and five others was told on Tuesday.

Officers had thrown a hammer through his kitchen window before he was arrested.

Ontario Provincial Police Det. Sgt. Bruce Aitken was tasked with arresting Sandham.

Aitken testified he recorded what Sandham said to him and a Winnipeg police detective after the president of the probationary chapter of the Manitoba Bandidos was given his rights to counsel.

The jury has heard Sandham and four other Winnipeg members had been at Wayne Kellestine’s farm the night eight Toronto Bandidios were shot to death on April 8, 2006, during a "patch pulling" to kick the men out of the club.

In the cruiser, Sandham was asked if he wanted to call a lawyer. "A hammer just got thrown through my window. I guess I want to call a lawyer. Should have knocked on the door," he said.

The officers told Sandham they were "acting on information."

"What information? Did I have a bazooka in the house?" he asked incredulously.

Sandham repeatedly told the officers they didn’t have any grounds to arrest him because he wasn’t at Kellestine’s farm when the bikers were shot.

Forensic biologist Brian Peck testified he tested blood found on firearms found in a compartment under a microwave oven in Kellestine’s kitchen.

One gun, a Mossberg and Sons .22 calibre rifle. had DNA that could be linked to five victims — Frank Salerno, George Jessome, Jamie Flanz, Paul Sinopoli and George Kriarakis.

The gun, with a green strap, was idetified by Crown star witness M.H. as the firearm Kellestine was using.

Crown attorney Kevin Gowdey told the jury this should be the last week of Crown evidence in the marathon case that began on March 31.

— The Canadian Press