NEW WESTMINSTER - A B.C. Supreme Court judge says a Surrey man was too drunk to commit murder and attempted murder.

Justice Paul Williamson instead found Iqbal Singh Vinepal, 62, guilty of manslaughter and aggravated assault in the Aug. 13, 2010 knife attack on his former lover and her new boyfriend.

Vinepal had been tried in New Westminster for second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Naib Singh Toor, 33, and also for attempted murder in the case of Razia Salaam, 43.

Vinepal stabbed Salaam in the chest and sliced her face and throat during the attack in his house, in the 12800-block of 99th Avenue in Whalley. Toor died of blood loss from two stab wounds. Vinepal claimed he'd acted in self-defence, but Williamson didn't believe him.

Salaam testified Vinepal told her after the attack that he'd cut her head off and give it to her mother, and he'd cut her up, put her in the freezer and eat her. After that, she said, Vinepal suggested they get married in India.

Crown prosecutor Liane O'Grady has requested a psychiatric evaluation and risk assessment be done on Vinepal prior to his sentencing on Sept. 20.

Williamson noted that Toor's blood alcohol content was four and a half times over the legal driving limit and that Vinepal had been in a similar state.

He found Vinepal had been too intoxicated to meet the established threshold to form intent to kill.

Vinepal, who was dressed in a red prisoner's suite, didn't show much emotion as the sheriff led him away.

"He's very mellow," his lawyer Dil Gosal said. Gosal said the verdict was "a pretty good result, I think."

O'Grady said it had been a "really difficult" trial. "It was a really fair decision," she said of the verdict.

tzytaruk@thenownewspaper.com