Boyfriend of slain nurse charged in gun, drug bust months after acquittal

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The boyfriend of a London nurse gunned down in their driveway three years ago faces more than a dozen gun and drug charges.

The latest charges against Ali Bhatti, whose girlfriend Lynda Marques was killed by masked gunmen on Sept. 10, 2022, come seven months after he was acquitted in a high-profile gun case.

London police searched three homes and vehicles on Pall Mall Street, Falcon Street and Adelaide Street North on Nov. 7 and seized five handguns, a silencer, seven extended magazines, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and $61,800 cash, police said Friday.

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Investigators also seized suspected cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, fentanyl, prescription pills, drug paraphernalia and electronics, police said.

Bhatti, 30, and two other London men, aged 38 and 44, face a combined 62 gun- and drug-related charges including drug possession for the purpose of trafficking, possession of a prohibited or restricted weapon and careless storage of a firearm.

This isn’t Bhatti’s first run-in with police since the death of Marques, 30, with whom he has a son.

Four months after she was killed, Bhatti was arrested when London police pulled over a vehicle and seized two loaded guns and ammunition, police said at the time. Investigators also searched Bhatti’s home on Wateroak Drive, west of Fanshawe Park and Wonderland roads, where they seized 22 grams of cocaine, one gram of suspected fentanyl, prescription pills and $1,655 police said.

Bhatti was charged with 14 gun and drug offences. He was set to go to trial in April on the gun charges – the drug charges were withdrawn – but he was acquitted of all the charges one week earlier during a trial readiness conference after the Crown didn’t call any evidence.

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“As a result of this honourable court’s order excluding the evidence found within the doorframe of the Dodge Durango, the Crown now lacks a reasonable prospect of conviction,” assistant Crown attorney Konrad de Koning said during the hearing.

Police called Marques’ death a “targeted” killing but didn’t provide any updates in the case until six months later when investigators released an image of two masked men with handguns running toward her Wateroak Drive home. A photo of a third suspect also was released. The suspects travelled from the Toronto area the day before Marques was killed and immediately fled London after the shooting, police said at the time.

Two weeks after the photos were released, police charged Ammar Patel, 18, of Toronto with first-degree murder. He already was in jail facing 58 charges after being swept up in a Toronto police drug- and gun-trafficking probe, court records show. Ali Afandy, 23, was arrested in Regina on May 11, 2022, and charged with first-degree murder. A pre-trial conference for both men is scheduled to begin Nov. 29.

The two gun-wielding suspects, seen in a photo running toward Marques’ home, remain at large, police have said.

Bhatti appeared briefly in court Friday and remains in custody awaiting a bail hearing. The other two men are scheduled to appear in court next week and next month, respectively.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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