Assoun compensated for wrongful conviction, prison time

Glen Assoun has reached a compensation agreement with the federal and Nova Scotia governments for having spent nearly 17 years in prison on a wrongful conviction.

“That's been addressed to the satisfaction of all parties, it's concluded,” Randy Delorey, the province's new justice minister, said Thursday.

But he wasn't revealing any details of the agreement.

“That's confidential,” Delorey said of the terms of the agreement, part of which is the confidentiality stipulation.

Delorey said the agreement was reached recently but it predated his time as justice minister. Delorey and his fellow ministers took the oath of office on Feb. 23.

Assoun said in October that he feared he would die before governments offered him compensation for his time in prison after being wrongfully convicted in the 1995 death of Brenda Way.

Assoun, in his mid 60s, had said that he was told by doctors that his coronary system is operating at one-third of its normal capacity.

“The settlement occurred before I came in,” Delorey said when asked why details of the agreement are not being disclosed.

Assoun's lawyers, Sean Macdonald and Philip Campbell, had said he would be seeking a multimillion-dollar settlement from the province, federal government and Halifax Regional Police for his client.

Assoun's lawyers did not put a specific amount on compensation sought but used Omar Khadr's $10.5-million settlement from the Canadian government in 2017 as a benchmark. The native of Canada was 15 years old when he was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for killing a U.S. soldier during the Afghanistan War. He was detained for 10 years and afterward sued the government for violating his rights.

Assoun was released on bail in 2014 and his lawyers said he was subject to ankle monitors, geographic restrictions and reporting requirements for five years after his release.

The Nova Scotia Supreme Court released federal documents in 2019 showing Assoun had been the subject of a miscarriage of justice carried out by police investigators and Crown lawyers assigned to his case.

“The first thing to be said here is that there is not enough money in Canada to pay Mr. Assoun for what Mr. Assoun suffered as the result of the wrong decisions that were made,” said Gary Burrill, leader of the New Democratic Party of Nova Scotia.

“What happened to Mr. Assoun ought to have been the subject of an inquiry,” he said.

Burrill said he would reserve comment on whether the compensation figure should be made public until he knows more about the terms of the settlement.