Chris Bishop charged with killing three, wounding two

A preliminary hearing for the Cambridge Bay man accused of shooting five people in January, 2007 wrapped up in Iqaluit this past Tuesday.

Chris Bishop, 23, faces three charges of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

He appeared in court Nov. 12 wearing a crisp, dark-grey suit and striped blue tie, sitting alongside his Toronto-based lawyer, Calvin Martin.

Evidence given at preliminary hearings may not be published or broadcast, but Crown lawyer Paul Bychok said prosecutors plan to call 20 civilian witnesses and at least six police witnesses.

Bishop is accused of killing Kevin Komaksiut, 21, and Keith Atatahak, 28, both of Cambridge Bay, and Dean Costa, 29, of Edmonton. Two other people were shot and wounded when a man fired several times during an altercation.

The preliminary inquiry got underway more than a year after it was originally scheduled because of a dispute over who would represent Bishop.

Martin is representing Bishop after a protracted battle last year with the Nunavut Legal Services Board. The LSB, which is paying for Bishop's defence, wanted the accused to pick from a list of lawyers based in Nunavut.

But Bishop maintained that at least two of those lawyers wanted him to plead guilty, and wanted Martin, a Toronto-based lawyer who specializes in gun control and self-defence cases, to represent him.

In April of this year, Justice Beverly Browne ruled the LSB was failing to provide clients with an appropriate choice of lawyers. She ordered the LSB to allow Bishop to retain Martin as his lawyer.