Ontario’s top court has ruled that a former Canadian soldier accused of murder, who was set free due to years of court delays, must stand trial, the family of the alleged victim tells CTV's Catherine Lathem.
Ex-soldier Adam Picard was arrested in December of 2012 and charged with the killing of 28-year-old Fouad Nayel, who went missing in June of that year. The Ottawa man’s decomposed body was eventually found in a wooded area near Calabogie, in the Upper Ottawa Valley, in November 2012. It was discovered that he had been shot twice in the back.
Picard was charged with first-degree murder in Nayel’s death in December 2012. He spent four years in custody before an Ontario Superior Court judge, Justice Julianne Parfett, stayed the charge under the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling on set time limits for trials, which were introduced last summer.
The Supreme Court of Canada’s new rules state that cases must go to trial within 18 months in provincial court and within 30 months for those heard in Superior Court, unless the Crown can prove the delays were reasonable.
In her decision, Parfett ruled that Picard’s rights to be “tried within a reasonable time” had been infringed. Picard was released in November 2016.
Prosecutors appealed Parfett’s decision to stay the first-degree murder charge in the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Crown alleged that the Ontario judge “mischaracterized” the nature of the delays and didn’t consider the complexity of the case.
Picard’s defence lawyers argued that Parfett’s ruling should be upheld.
Jackie Dunham, CTVNews.ca, with files from the Canadian Press