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   Canadian sex killer faces post-prison sanctions

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Topic: Canadian sex killer faces post-prison sanctions (Read 165 times)

Rhune
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Canadian sex killer faces post-prison sanctions
« on: Jun 2^nd, 2005, 1:29pm »

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Canadian sex killer faces post-prison sanctions
Homolka may 'pose risk to the public, ' prosecutor says
Thursday, June 2, 2005 Posted: 12:51 PM EDT (1651 GMT)

JOLIETTE, Quebec (Reuters) -- A Quebec court is being asked Thursday to keep Canada's most notorious female criminal under close watch after she completes her sentence for the sex killings of two schoolgirls.

The request is an unprecedented one for a convict who has served a full prison term, rather than leaving jail early on parole. But critics say it is driven more by politics than a pressing need to protect the public from 35-year-old Karla Homolka.

Homolka and her then-husband Paul Bernardo kidnapped, sexually assaulted, tortured, and killed two teenaged girls in the early 1990s in southern Ontario.

Homolka will be released from a Quebec prison in July after 12 years behind bars, a plea-bargain sentence that came after she admitted two counts of manslaughter in return for testifying against Bernardo.

Bernardo is serving a life sentence for murder.

Citing concerns that Homolka may re-offend, the Ontario government wants a Quebec court to impose strict restrictions on her movements after she leaves prison.

"No matter where she goes, our justice system will be watching her," Michael Bryant, Ontario's attorney general, said. "She has been convicted of the most horrific, ghoulish crimes imaginable to humankind. And the parole board has made findings that she may pose a risk to the public."

The case of Bernardo and Homolka -- a young, attractive, suburban couple who ran a house of horrors in the quiet Ontario town of St. Catharines -- stunned Canada in the early 1990s. The couple became the nation's most reviled criminals.

Penalty paid in full
Now Homolka, a former veterinarian's assistant, is about to walk free. She has served her full sentence, paid her penalty, and under normal circumstances this would allow her to live the remainder of her life unrestricted.

"(Ontario's request) is simply political maneuvering and pandering to the public by a government that, for whatever reason, any time the name Homolka comes up, goes into a panic," Toronto lawyer Leo Adler said.

Ontario plans to ask another court to order Homolka to submit DNA samples to a national database after legislation was rushed through Parliament allowing this to happen.

The restrictions sought on Thursday could involve a curfew, a limit on her association with other people, or even a tracking device.

"Unless preventive measures can be justified, it would seem to be that if she's served her sentence, then that's it," said Patrick Healy, a law professor at McGill University in Montreal. "I don't know what the evidence is that the Crown intends to produce. I'm not aware that there is any."

'Deal with the devil'
Critics say the Ontario government is belatedly trying to compensate for the controversial plea bargain Homolka arranged -- dubbed a "deal with the devil" -- just before prosecutors obtained videotapes that the couple made of their sex torture and killing of teenagers Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy in the basement of their house.

At the time of the deal, the government portrayed Homolka as an abused wife who was terrorized by her husband into taking part in his crimes.

The gruesome videotapes suggested that Homolka had been an eager participant in the killings of Mahaffy and French, and had played a major role in the earlier death of her own 15-year-old sister, who had been raped by her and Bernardo.

"They took the position at the trial that she was not a dangerous person. She wasn't a danger then, why are they saying she is now?" Adler said.

"Unless, of course, they lied to the court in order to get a conviction, which raises all kinds of issues and questions about the fairness of his trial."

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Copyright 2005 Reuters.

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Elsa
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Re: Canadian sex killer faces post-prison sanction
« Reply #1 on: Jun 2^nd, 2005, 9:47pm »