“Hurricane” Carter on Mr. Big. Appeal ruling on Nuttall and Korody

A three judge panel at the BC Supreme Court unanimously confirmed a lower court ruling that the convictions (and the investigation) of John Nuttall and Amanda Korody were “a travesty of justice”. The Mr. Big sting operation induced them to plant what they thought was a bomb at the BC legislature in Victoria. The judges concluded that the pair was incapable of planning and carrying out such an undertaking: “Police went far beyond investigating a crime.” Indeed, the RCMP manufactured the crime to burnish their own reputations in the fight against terrorism. In the process, they callously ruined yet two more lives. When will Mr. Big be banned?

The case of Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns can be analyzed in terms of this court decision. Their confessions were induced by the same disreputable methods. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter had this to say about Mr. Big with regard to Burns and Rafay:

Innocence International finds this case of wrongful conviction both appalling and abhorrent, a crime against innocence. Two young men have had their lives stolen away. While the RCMP has been able to elicit confessions and solve crimes by using Mr. Big, this method is poorly designed to separate the innocent from the guilty. The function of the police is to serve people, to protect them, and to support the scientific gathering of evidence, not to behave like gangsters! If a police officer looks like a criminal and continually acts like a criminal (more than five hundred of these stings in British Columbia alone), where does one draw the line between police activity and criminal behavior?  (Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness to Freedom).

Let us hope that John Nuttall and Amanda Korody are now allowed to live their lives in peace.