‘See what I do to him’
JEALOUS HUSBAND SENTENCED TO LIFE IN LOVE-TRIANGLE MURDER
First, they plied Suren Sivananthan with alcohol. Then they beat him — for hours and hours. At one point, the Toronto man’s captors allowed him to talk to his girlfriend on the phone. “Everyone’s beating me up,” he said, before the line was cut off.
When she called back moments later, the voice on the other end was seething. It was her estranged husband.
“You will see what I do to him.”
On Friday, a British judge s entenced Gnanachandran Balachandran, 38, and a 17-yearold accomplice to life in prison after a jury found them guilty of the January murder of Sivananthan, 32, whose bloodied body was dumped outside a supermarket in Milton Keynes, a town north of London.
The love- triangle slaying of Sivananthan — which police described as “appallingly brutal” — was motivated by Balachandran’s rabid jealousy, prosecutors said, and left Sivananthan’s family back in Toronto reeling.
A family statement issued through the police following the convictions laid bare their pain.
“I hope those convicted are haunted by their ill acts and their suffering continues forever, just as we — his family and friends — are suffering,” it said.
According to a CBC report earlier this year, Sivananthan, a Sri Lankan national living in Toronto, had left for Germany with his parents on Dec. 30 to visit his younger sister, who had recently had a baby.
During his vi si t , Sivananthan took a side trip to Britain to meet up with a childhood friend, Ragupathy Annalingham, with whom he had gone to school in Sri Lanka.
Annalingham was separated from her husband, Balachandran, for nine years, a court later heard. She and Sivananthan rekindled their relationship over Facebook in 2016 and she visited him in Canada that year.
“They had recently got back in contact with each other and started a new and happy relationship,” Thames Valley Police Detective Chief Insp. Mark Glover said in a statement.
They tried to keep their budding relationship a secret, but Balachandran — who was “obsessed” with his estranged wife and wouldn’t accept that his marriage was over, prosecutors said — found out.
On Jan. 20, Sivananthan and Annalingham were shopping together when they spotted Balachandran’s car. Before they parted ways, Annalingham gave Sivananthan a spare mobile phone so she could stay in contact with him.
According to police, Balachandran and an accomplice, Prashanth Thevarasa, 24, approached Sivananthan and convinced him to have drinks with them.
“Once drunk, Suren was less able to resist the violence and defend himself against his attackers,” Liz Scriven, a senior Crown prosecutor, said in a statement.
Police said Sivananthan’s captors took him by taxi to an alleyway next to a fried chicken joint where they beat him. Then they took him by taxi to a home where they beat him some more. There, the 17-year-old boy joined in the prolonged assault.
Sivananthan was then taken to an area near a co- op store where he was beaten a final time, changed into a different set of clothes, and left for dead. His body was discovered at 4 a. m. on Jan. 21, the day he was supposed to rejoin his family in Germany.
Over the course of 12 hours, police said, Sivananthan’s attackers had inflicted 87 injuries to his body — 36 to his head and neck.
Annalingham later testified that at one point during the assault, she was able to speak to Sivananthan on the phone.
“He told me in Tamil, ‘ Everyone’s beating me up.’ He didn’t know where he was and the call ended,” she told the jury.
When she called back, it sounded as if his phone was on speaker mode. Her estranged husband shouted about her “needing a man.”
“Why do you want to pick him up? Why are you asking where he is?” she recalled him saying. “You can’t live with your husband and so you take some- one else. You are a bad person.”
Balachandran was later arrested at a hotel. Among the items in his possession: Sivananthan’s blood- stained clothes and jewelry, and the mobile phone he had borrowed from Balachandran’s wife.
Before handing Balachandran a life sentence Friday with a minimum term of 18 years, Judge Richard Foster summed up his view of the killer: “By January this year you knew your marriage was at an end. In the previous October you had received correspondence from solicitors instigating divorce proceedings. You were unable to accept the reality that your marriage was over and it is clear that you felt humiliated by the situation.”
The 17- year- old accomplice, who cannot be named because of his age, was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 11 years.
The other accomplice, Thevarasa, was acquitted of murder but found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.
Earlier this year, the Markham Toronto Cricket League, of which Sivananthan was a member, described him as a “quiet gentleman” and “passionate” player.
“Suren was a good man who did not deserve such an unlawful, agonizing, long death,” his family wrote in their statement.
“Suren, we will forever miss you. Always! … We will never forget his acts of kindness, his enthusiasm, and his vitality for life. I will never forget how my dear brother held me, played with me, talked to me, and always made me laugh, and sometimes even made me angry. But that’s what brothers do sometimes.
“He was a marvellous son who always put his parents’ interests before his. He was a devoted friend who would go to the ends of the earth and reach for the stars. He will forever be in our hearts.”