GLEN ASSOUN CASE - JUDGE TO UNSEAL DOCUMENTS FRIDAY AM
TORONTO: A Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge is set to unseal documents Friday morning showing that evidence suppressed and destroyed by authorities could have freed wrongly convicted Glen Assoun.
The documents will be opened to media and public scrutiny at 9:30 a.m at the N.S. Supreme Court courthouse in Halifax.
Last week, Justice James Chipman ruled against an attempt by the province and police to keep the documents confidential.
Innocence Canada lawyers Phil Campbell and Sean MacDonald supported a media coalition at the hearing, arguing that the public interest necessitated the release of the material.
Mr. Assoun served 16 and a half years of a life sentence for the 1995 murder of a Halifax woman, Brenda Way. He was convicted in 1999. In 2014, he was released on bail pending a review of his conviction by the federal Criminal Conviction Review Group (“CCRG”) and spent approximately five years on bail under extremely onerous release conditions.
In total, Glen Assoun was wrongly convicted for 21 years.Once shown the results of the internal review, Justice Minister David Lametti quickly referred the case back for a retrial. The province opted not to prosecute, exonerating Mr. Assoun.
Mr. Assoun insisted on his innocence at all times, from his first contact with police in 1995, through to his exoneration in March 2019. The documents to be unsealed today are expected to show that, unbeknown to Mr. Assoun's legal team, the case against him was irreparably flawed.
Recent court submissions suggest that authorities colluded to suppress vital evidence. The documents may also point a finger at the real perpetrator - or perpetrators - of Ms. Way's murder.
There are a few individuals whose commitment to the pursuit of justice assisted Mr. Assoun and whose contributions should be acknowledged. These include: the CCRG for their highly professional and comprehensive investigation, former Minister of Justice Peter MacKay who oversaw the investigation at its most critical point, current Minister of Justice David Lametti for immediately recognizing the injustice and taking swift and decisive action to remedy it and Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice James Chipman for judicially restoring the integrity of the process.
At the conclusion of Friday's court proceeding, Mr. MacDonald and Innocence Canada Co-President Ron Dalton will respond to media questions outside the courthouse.
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For further information, please contact:
Innocence Canada
111 Peter Street, Suite 408
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 2H1
ISSUED BY
STEPHEN WEIR
Stephen Weir & Associates | stephen@stephenweir.com
109 Castlefield Avenue, Toronto, ON
CANADA. M4R 1G5
Tel: 416-489-5868 | cell: 416-801-3101
www.stephenweir.com twitter: sweirsweir
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