Not a Terrorist

On February 19, 2015, I posted a blog wondering at the cost and the rational of trying to convict a young couple from Victoria of a terrorist act. An act that from all who knew them, that they could not have carried out on their own. The evidence appeared to be that their "plot" was, at the very least, guided by an uncover police officer. They were convicted by a jury of terror related charges in June of 2015.

Yesterday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce said that the police had entrapped the couple by encouraging them and facilitating their plot to place a bomb on the grounds of the BC Legislature. Their convictions were over-turned and they were free to leave after having been incarcerated for three years. Justice Catherine Bruce's comments were quite clear. The couple did not have the capacity to carry out the crime and were only able to do so under the guidance of an undercover officer. Specifically she said that " the Mounties used trickery, deceit and veiled threats to engineer the terrorist acts" (HuffPost). Justice Bruce went even further in her written statement and said " Simply put, the world has enough terrorists. We do not need the police to create more out of marginalized people who have neither the capacity nor sufficient motivation to do it themselves."(CBC)

Shortly after their release they were re-arrested because the Crown still considered them a risk. There will be a court date set to review the Crown's application for a peace bond - in spite of the fact that they have been judged not guilty of any crime.

Three years ago, Canada had a different Prime Minister. Looking back, it certainly felt as if he, at every opportunity, raised the issue of terrorism and what appeared to be the need for constant vigilance against those from other faiths who were putting our country at daily risk. There was a heightened sense of doom, that we were all potentially at risk. It is not surprising that a perhaps young and ambitious RCMP officer would have seen the opportunity to do what the government was demanding of all law enforcement agencies - find and stop the terrorists hiding in our back yards. What I find surprising or perhaps more importantly - concerning is that the "leadership of the RCMP and  the Crown's office did not see any problem with running an operation that was clearly, at the very least, entrapment. In fact it appears to have been worse than that. It was not that the police just gave the couple "enough rope to hang themselves", the police went out, bought the rope and then taught the couple how to tie the knot!

I would certainly hope that the state compensates John Nuttall and Amanda Korody for the past three years. More importantly I hope the government takes some of that money that they would have used to incarcerate them for the next twenty-five years and use it to provide an ongoing level of support that will ensure that their lives are happy and as productive as they would wish them to be.

 It is interesting to note that photographs of John Nuttall and Amanda Korody that the press have shown for the last few years do not reflect the rather handsome looking couple that they are. Nuttall, who in most those pictures is sitting in the back seat of a car, looks, at best, dishevelled. His courtroom pictures from yesterday show him clean shaven, in a nice suit - not at all like the terrorist he was accused of being. One could wonder why newer pictures were not shown at the time of his conviction.