VANCOUVER — Two people found guilty of terror charges will walk free after a British Columbia Supreme Court judge ruled they were entrapped by the RCMP in a police-manufactured crime.
Justice Catherine Bruce said police instigated and skillfully engineered the very terrorist acts committed by John Nuttall and Amanda Korody, who believed they were planting pressure-cooker bombs that would blow up at the legislature on Canada Day in 2013.
"The world has enough terrorists. We do not need the police to create more out of marginalized people," Bruce said in a landmark ruling Friday.
"The defendants were the foot soldiers but the undercover officer was the leader of the group," she said.
"Without the police it would have been impossible for the defendants to carry out the pressure-cooker plan."
Bruce said RCMP officers overstepped their authority during a months-long, undercover sting and their actions were egregious.
"The police decided they had to aggressively engineer and plan for Nuttall and Korody and make them think it was their own," she said.
"To say they were unsophisticated is generous," she said, adding there was no imminent threat to the public from a pair who demonstrated they were not intelligent but naive.
A jury found Nuttall and Korody guilty in June 2015 of three terrorism-related charges, but Bruce delayed registering the convictions at the request of defence lawyers, who wanted to argue the Mounties had entrapped their clients.
An entrapment finding means Bruce will issue a stay of proceedings, which throws out the jury's guilty verdict.
It won't appear on any criminal record and can't be used against the couple in the future. Had they been convicted, Nuttall and Korody would have a maximum sentence of life in prison.
A stay of proceedings has the same end result but is different than an acquittal, which is a finding of not guilty.
This is the first time in Canada the legal defence of entrapment has been successfully argued in a terrorism case. Three previous attempts failed.
Timeline of B.C. terrorist bomb plot
Feb. 23, 2013: The primary undercover officer involved in the RCMP sting, posing as an Arab businessman, first makes contact with John Nuttall. They reportedly lock eyes in a convenience store near Nuttall's residence. Two days later the officer approaches Nuttall with a request to help him look for his lost niece. Nuttall reveals to him that same day his desire to wage holy war on behalf of Islam.
May 5, 2013: The undercover officer drives Nuttall and Korody to Whistler, B.C., so Nuttall can drop off a hard drive to one of the officer's supposed associates containing an outline of his alleged plot to hijack a Via Rail passenger train on Vancouver Island. During the drive it becomes apparent that Nuttall has not begun work on the document. The three spend several hours in a Whistler parking lot as Nuttall types up an outline. The undercover officer later scolds him for coming up with a poorly researched plan after it's revealed that the targeted rail line stopped operating years earlier.
June 16 to 19, 2013: Officers set up Nuttall and Korody in what the pair believe is a protected hotel room in Kelowna, B.C., where they are told they can relax and work on their terrorist plot in peace. When the primary undercover officer learns Nuttall made no progress on the plan, he chastises him for not being invested enough in his terrorist plot, calling his actions a "sign of disrespect."
June 29, 2013: Nuttall and Korody meet with an undercover officer posing as a high-ranking terrorist liaison. The couple is at first unsuccessful at persuading him to provide C4 plastic explosive for the pair to arm their pressure-cooker bombs but he eventually agrees to help. Nuttall and Korody disguise themselves with headscarves and film a jihadist video, which they intend to have released once their mission is complete. In it they outline their reasons for carrying out the bombing.
July 1, 2013: Nuttall and Korody covertly stash sports bags containing homemade pressure-cooker bombs under bushes flanking the B.C. legislature shortly before 4 a.m. They head to a hotel after taking a ferry back to the B.C. mainland but soon become agitated when news of the explosions doesn't air on television. The two leave the hotel at 2 p.m., and are immediately arrested by police.
Feb. 2, 2015: A jury trial begins on whether Nuttall and Korody are guilty of four counts of terrorism-related offences: conspiring to commit murder, conspiring to place explosives on behalf of a terrorist group, facilitating terrorist activity and possessing explosives on behalf of a terrorist group. The judge later dismisses the third charge of facilitating terrorist activity, citing legal reasons.
June 2, 2015: After nearly three days of deliberations, a jury finds Nuttall and Korody guilty of plotting to bomb the B.C. legislature on Canada Day of 2013. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce agrees to a request from the pair's lawyers not to enter the convictions until defence has the opportunity to argue that police entrapped the pair.
July 13, 2015: Lawyers begin their arguments in B.C. Supreme Court into whether the RCMP entrapped Nuttall and Korody.
July 29, 2016: B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce stayed the charges against the couple, saying the police undercover operation skillfully engineered the terrorist act committed by Nuttall and Korody.
