VANCOVUER, B.C. — A legal expert says a couple found guilty of terrorism in a foiled attempt to bomb the British Columbia legislature face an uphill battle to prove they were entrapped by police.
Simon Fraser University criminology professor David MacAlister says John Nuttall and Amanda Korody will have to convince a judge they wouldn’t have carried out their bomb plot without police involvement.
Jurors found them each guilty of conspiring to commit murder as well as possessing and planting an explosive substance on behalf of a terrorist organization.
But a judge has yet to enter the convictions, saying she will still rule on whether police enticed the couple to break the law by entrapping them.
Defence lawyers say their clients were manipulated by undercover officers and they plan on calling senior RCMP officials to testify when arguments begin in July.
Court has heard that Nuttall and Korody were poor drug addicts with radical Islamic views when police launched an undercover sting that led to their arrests.