Three men face charges in connection with the jailbreak of a man who escaped from a B.C. prison and remains at large.
Rabih “Robby” Alkhalil was standing trial for a Vancouver murder when he escaped the North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam on July 21, 2022.
Police have previously said he got out with the help of two men posing as contractors.
The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit – British Columbia (CFSEU-BC) and the RCMP Federal Policing Pacific Region announced Monday three men are charged with conspiracy to commit a prison breach and prison breach.
The accused are Ottawa natives Edward Ayoub, 48, and John Potvin, 49, and Ryan Van Gool, 46, from Harrison Hot Springs, B.C.
Police said Potvin is currently wanted on a Canada-wide warrant on these charges.
Ayoub was already in custody in another province on an unrelated matter.
Police said their investigation led to further charges against Ryan Van Gool and two more men in a separate case. The men were allegedly involved in a murder plot in Kamloops in March 2024.
Van Gool and Surrey residents Bryce Telford, 28, and Scott Telford, 61, are each charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of a loaded restricted firearm and possession of a loaded prohibited firearm.
Van Gool faces two additional firearms-related charges.
Police said the three men were arrested on September 5th.
Police said Alkhalil remains at large and his whereabouts are unknown. The 38-year-old is on the Bolo Program’s list of Canada’s 25 most wanted fugitives.
Police have said Alkhalil has extensive ties to organized crime.
An Ontario judge sentenced Alkhalil to life in prison in 2017 for the murder of a man in a Toronto coffee shop. He was given a concurrent sentence of 20-years for conspiracy to commit murder.
In 2020, Alkhalil was sentenced in Quebec to eight years in prison for drug trafficking.
At the time of his escape from prison, he was in B.C. to stand trial in the January 2012 killing of Sandip Duhre.
Duhre was shot at a busy restaurant at the downtown Vancouver Sheraton Wall Centre. Vancouver Police have said they believe it was a gang-related contract killing.
In August 2022, a jury found Alkhalil guilty of first-degree murder in the case even though he was not present for the trial.
He is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and being unlawfully at large. He’s also the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, which is a request to law enforcement worldwide to provisionally arrest a wanted person.
Police have said Alkhalil is known to go by other names, including Rabi, Robby, Robbi, Rabih Al Khalil, Philip Betencourt Furtado and Philip Bettenecourt Furtado.
