An imprisoned man for more than three decades for killing an Edmonton woman received a bond, months after the Federal Minister of Justice annulled his sentence.
After more than 35 years after the bars in the murder of Susan Kaminsky, 34, Roy Allan Sobotiak received the release of custody on Friday.
Kaminsky, a mother of two children from Edmonton, disappeared in 1987. To this day, his body has never been found.
Sobotiak was convicted of second degree murder in 1991 and sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for probation for 16 and a half years.
During a hearing on Friday at the King’s Bench court in Edmonton, Judge Eric Macklin granted the Bail of Sobotiak. It will be released later today.
Sobotiak is now 61 years old.
The crown argued that it should be kept under house arrest. Sobotiak’s legal team played that, suggesting a curfew, and the court agreed.
Macklin ruled that, with his prior conviction for murder, Sobotiak is considered legally innocent and must receive a release.
Macklin said that, despite the crimes that Sobotiak has committed in prison, it is still sure that it can be safely eliminated from custody.
Sobotiak has been institutionalized for decades and “I could not escape the subculture of prison,” Macklin said
“The court must consider restriction,” Macklin said.
“Place Mr. Sobotiak under house arrest today is equivalent to replacing a prison, although more relaxed, with a different jailer.”
He said Sobotiak has signed an affidavit, committing himself to the terms of his release.
“Detention is not necessary to protect public security,” Macklin said. “As he says, he has worked too hard for too long to ruin things.”
Macklin said his decision on Friday had to satisfy his role as a guardian in “peculiar circumstances.”
Friday’s procedures began with questions about the jurisdiction of the court and how to evaluate the request for bail of Sobotiak, given the rare legal circumstances of their pending trial.
Sobotiak received a new trial in February by the then Federal Minister of Justice Arif Virani, who concluded that there were reasonable reasons to believe that a “spontaneous abortion of justice” had occurred in the case.
Sobotiak has received legal assistance from Innocence Canada, a non -profit organization that advocates unjust sentences.
Sobotiak will be released in a sober life house in Fort McMurray and will be subject to conditions that include a curfew and electronic monitoring for a period of three months, to ensure that it does not travel outside the limits of the community of northern Alberta.
The presentations heard on Friday paint contradictory images: one of a violent and sexually criminal that can represent a risk for public security, the other of a modern man who was harmed by the justice system and deserves his new freedom.
The lawyer James Lockyer, founding director of Innocence Canada, spoke on behalf of Sobotiak.
He said Virani asked his non -profit organization to intervene after a federal investigation discovered unacceptable failures with the previous case.
Lockyer said the main problems with the case of Sobotiak included problems with non -dissemination, forensic tests and forensic results.
He said that once the federal research discovered those problems, Virani took “extraordinary measures” to intervene in the case of Sobotiak.
In response to the call for a new trial, Alberta has requested a judicial review that challenged the decision.
Alberta Attorney General Mickey Amery argued that his federal counterpart did not provide any reason, written or other, to support his findings that a new trial is justified.
Virani had said previously that a new trial was necessary due to the new information that was not before the courts at the time of the trial or appeal of Sobotiak.
The Federal Justice Department at that time declined to comment on the new evidence, but has said that the new trial was called after a thorough examination of the case.
“Mr. Sobotiak not only has a presumption of innocence. He has a strong presumption of innocence,” Lockyer said.
“It is unique to this court.”
Without a trace
Kaminsky disappeared in February 1987 after one night with friends at a North Edmonton pub.
He never returned home and was reported as missing. His car was found the next day, abandoned on a South Edmonton street.
Kaminsky once took care of Sobotiak as a child. Police determined that he was the last person to see her alive.
The researchers suspected dirty play, but no charges were presented until 1989 when Sobotiak, then 26, was accused of first degree murder.
Just a few days after she disappeared, Sobotiak told CBC News that she had been interviewed by the police.
Sitting in his department, he described Kaminsky as a “pleasant and soft voice” and recalled his first interactions with the officers who investigated his death.
“They interviewed me for about three hours and then took me on a three -mile walk through the River Valley here, tracking my steps from Saturday afternoon.”
Kaminsky’s disappearance caused one of the most intensive police investigations that Edmonton had seen.
The search for a month, involved the police and hundreds of civilians, who toured the forests and ravines along any track. However, the search did not discover any evidence of their remains, disconcerating the researchers and leaving their family more and more anxious to the answers as the months passed.
Two years after Kaminsky disappeared, Sobotiak was accused.
The main evidence against him was recorded in the statements made to an undercover police officer in which he boasted that he had tortured, sexually assaulted, killed and dismembered to Kaminsky in his mother’s basement before getting rid of his body.
He also confessed the murder during a police interrogation, but then changed his story.
Sobotiak, who has been fulfilling his sentence in a federal penitentiary in Alberta, has maintained his innocence.
He previously launched without success for both the Alberta Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Innocence Canada, who helped Sobotiak request a new trial, said in February that the 62 -year -old has always insisted on his innocence.
The non -profit organization said that four of its lawyers helped Sobotiak in their application to the Federal Justice Minister.
