Witch ruse breached rights, court told
Police posed as West Indian spiritual adviser in murder probe
Peel Region police breached the religious rights of a Jamaican Canadian family by having an officer pose as an Obeah spiritual adviser to extract information during a murder investigation, the Court of Appeal will hear on Tuesday.
Evol Robinson, his brother Jahmar Welsh, and friend Ruben Pinnock are asking the court to overturn their firstdegree murder convictions in the 2004 Brampton shooting of drug dealer Youhan Oraha.
The trial judge, Ontario Superior Court Justice Terrance O’Connor, erred in admitting statements made by Robinson and Pinnock to an undercover constable posing as Leon the Obeah Man, according to their claim.
The evidence was crucial to the Crown’s case against Robinson and Pinnock. The Crown argues police did not play a “dirty trick” that would shock Canadians. “Deceit and manipulation are inherent in undercover operations,” it says in a written response.
The police officer, Andrew Cooper, donned a black robe and wore a head covering and chanted in a darkened room lit by candlelight. Most sessions were secretly videotaped.
To appear prescient, Cooper used information from police wiretaps. To demonstrate his power over evil, he had a dead crow placed on the Robinson family’s front steps.
He broke open an egg at the murder scene with secretly pre-loaded red dye to look like blood.
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines Obeah as a type of sorcery or witchcraft practised especially in the West Indies, but four defence experts at trial said it is a form of religious practice.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has intervened in the appeal, arguing that allowing police to impersonate religious advisers “shocks the conscience of Canadians.”
“People in Canada have a right to spiritual guidance and a right to a relationship with a religious advisor free from police interference,” the association states in written submissions.
A black man of Caribbean ancestry, Cooper had 17 sessions with Robinson, his mother, Colette, and/ or Pinnock.
“Leon” claimed the Robinson family was cursed by an evil spirit, a “white boy” who had drawn police and the judiciary to them.
He offered Colette Robinson protection against the justice system (Babylon) and its stakeholders ( judges, police — the “Beast man”) and engaged them in activities he claimed would quell the evil spirit.
The African Canadian Legal Clinic has intervened in the case, arguing the ruse preyed on the Robinson family’s deep-seated mistrust of police and the criminal justice system.
Police treated the Robinsons’ ethnicity-based belief in Obeah as a tool to extract information, assuming those beliefs are not worthy of equal respect, thus breaching their equality rights, the clinic argues.
Det.-Sgt. David Jarvis testified at trial that the Obeah idea was his. Obeah is not a religion, he maintained, and he would not have infiltrated Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims or Hindus.
The appeal court has set aside Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the arguments.