B.C. couple found guilty of plotting to bomb legislature to walk free
Posted December 19, 2018 9:39 am.
Last Updated December 19, 2018 2:20 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A couple found guilty of plotting to set off pressure cooker bombs outside the provincial legislature have had their convictions stayed.
The BC Court of Appeal has agreed with a lower court judge who said the RCMP officers manipulated John Nuttall and Amanda Korody into going ahead with the attack planned for Canada Day 2013.
This all relates to a five-month RCMP investigation of the two that cost more than $1-million to carry out.
In June 2015, a jury found Nuttall and Korody guilty of conspiring to commit murder, possessing an explosive substance and placing an explosive in a public place on behalf of a terrorist group.
The convictions were put on hold until 2016 when Bruce ruled they had been entrapped by police, who she said used trickery, deceit and veiled threats to engineer the bomb plot.
The higher court has found the trial judge was correct in finding that the RCMP had entrapped the pair.
The ruling is unanimous with three judges finding the investigation was a “travesty of justice.”
RELATED: Crown wants convictions for B.C. pair earlier accused of terror-related crimes
Lawyers for Nuttall and Korody said there was no reason to reverse the stays of proceedings, arguing the couple feared they would be killed by the shadowy terrorist group if they didn’t follow through with the bomb plot.
Defence lawyers have argued the RCMP acted on unreasonable suspicions to exploit two vulnerable people, steering them towards a manufactured crime that was planned, prepared and all but carried out by police.
-With files from the Canadian Press and Martin MacMahon
