Judge rejects man’s explanation of gun in car

A man has been convicted of possession of a loaded firearm after the handgun was seized while the man was being issued a 90-day roadside driving suspension in downtown Vancouver.

Riak Kachuol, a local promoter who had been attending a hip hop show at a downtown club, testified that a friend of his named Michael Wilson had borrowed his Nissan Maxima earlier and was planning to return it to him.

He told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elaine Adair that Wilson had gotten out of the vehicle in the early morning hours of March 20, 2014 and ran away without saying anything to him. He claimed that he knew nothing about the revolver found in the console of the vehicle.

But in finding him guilty Wednesday, the judge concluded that the story about Wilson, whom nobody has been able to locate by any method since the incident, was a fabrication.

A police officer testified that he approached Kachuol after the accused had stopped the Nissan abruptly on Seymour Street and had gotten out and appeared to be off balance and impaired.

Kachuol refused to comply with three demands for breath samples and the police issued the roadside suspension.

When a tow truck arrived to impound the vehicle, police searched it and found the firearm in the console.

Kachuol challenged the admissibility of the evidence but the judge rejected his arguments.

The judge said that while some of Kachuol’s evidence was credible and reliable, where it could be corroborated by another witness, other parts of his testimony were unreasonable and inconsistent.

“I do not believe Mr. Kachuol’s evidence that he did not know about the loaded revolver.”

Possession of a loaded firearm carried a mandatory minimum of three years in prison until the law was recently struck down as being unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Kachuol will be sentenced at a later date.