Appeal Begins for Convicted Killers Burns and Rafay

Attorneys for Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay, who were convicted in 2004 for the murders of Rafay's mother, father and autistic sister in Bellevue's Somerset neighborhood, argued to a Washington appeals court Friday that evidence used in their conviction was improperly collected, according to the Associated Press.

Their lawyers say that the case relied on evidence collected in Burns and Rafay's native Canada that would have been illegal to collect in the U.S., according to the report. The pair, who are both 35, were each 18 when the killings took place, accordng to an article in the Vancouver Sun. (Click here to read that article in the Vancouver Sun.)

Burns and Rafay, who were arrested and convicted nearly a decade after the 1994 murders, were extradited from Canada in 2001 after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty, according to a summary in the Vancouver Sun. The Sun reports that Rafay's parents, Tariq and Sultana Rafay, and his older sister, Basma, were bludgeoned with a baseball bat in their Somerset home on July 12, 1994, while Rafay, Burns and a third friend were visiting from Vancouver.

According to the Sun's account, the prosecution used as evidence a videotaped conversation of Rafay and Burns bragging about the killing to undercover Royal Canadian Mounted Police who were posing as gang members. The third friend also testified against the pair.

Burns' sister, Tiffany Burns, has also lobbied for the pair's innocence, with a documentary about the case.

Read more about the case in the Vancouver Sun.