Canada: Killer of Mounties Sentenced to Life in Prison
|
Version 0 of 1. A man convicted of fatally shooting three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers and wounding two others was sentenced Friday to life in prison with no chance of parole for 75 years. The man, Justin Bourque, carried out his attack on June 4 in Moncton, New Brunswick, using a semiautomatic rifle. He was arrested after a manhunt throughout Moncton that lasted about 30 hours. Mr. Bourque, 24, pleaded guilty in August to three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. In a videotaped statement to the police he said that he wanted to encourage people to rise up against the “soldiers” that defend federal institutions and protect the rich from the poor. The sentence is the most severe in Canada since its last executions in 1962. Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976. |