Slain Bandidos biker mourned

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This article was published 16/04/2006 (7358 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO — There was a notable absence of biker gang colours yesterday as mourners dressed in sombre black suits paid their respects to a tow truck driver who was one of eight Bandidos members slain last weekend.

George Kriarakis, 28, was eulogized by a large number of friends and family at a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in north Toronto.

Many of the mourners were in tears as Rev. Drakos Poul remembered Kriarakis not as a troubled criminal, but as someone whose life was suddenly snuffed out, leaving his family bewildered.

At the end of the service, some mourners said goodbye as they filed past the open coffin, while others stood silently for a moment.

The face of the goateed biker was covered in heavy makeup, but bruises to his face were evident. Police have not said if any of the victims were beaten before being shot.

In the bright sunshine outside the service, a woman believed to be Kriarakis’s widow smiled and shook her head as pallbearers wearing crisp white gloves carried the coffin to a waiting hearse.

At the cemetery, York Region police officers watched with binoculars as hundreds arrived at the burial ground following the emotional funeral.

Honour guard

Two lone Bandidos bikers bearing the logo and colours of the biker gang stood solemnly, acting as a small honour guard, as their fellow member was buried.

Kriarakis, known as Crash or the Greek to his biker colleagues, was acting president of the Bandidos’ Toronto chapter and performed public relations and administration duties for the club, CTV News reported.

A receptionist at Bill and Son Towing in Toronto’s west end, where Kriarakis worked, refused to comment on Kriarakis or whether any co-workers attended the service.

The funeral followed another for Jamie Flanz on Wednesday in

Montreal.

Charming rogue

The 37-year-old Flanz was remembered as a charming rogue who was trying to turn his life around.

Another funeral is scheduled for tomorrow in Windsor, Ont., for John Muscedere, the former Canadian president of the Bandidos.

A funeral for Paul Sinopoli, 30, is to be held Tuesday in Toronto.

The other funeral arrangements have been made and all the victims of Ontario’s worst mass murder will be buried by the end of next week, but details were not immediately

available.

Last Sunday, police led five people from the southwestern Ontario farmhouse of known Bandidos biker gang member Wayne Kellestine — just one day after the eight corpses were found stuffed in four separate vehicles, some 10 kilometres away.

Kellestine, 57, Frank Mather, 32, Brett Gardiner, 21, Eric Niessen, 44, and Kerry Morris, 46, are all charged with eight counts of first-degree murder.

Police have refused to speculate on what sparked the mass slaying, saying only that the eight Bandidos were the victims of an “internal cleansing.”

— Canadian Press