Monday October 2, 2017
Amanda Lindhout attends a reception held in her honour by the Alberta Somali-Canadian community in Calgary on Sunday Feb. 21, 2010. Lindhout was kidnapped in Somalia in 2008 and held for more than a year being released in late 2009. (Larry MacDougal/Canadian Press)
More than nine years after journalist Amanda Lindhout was taken hostage in Somalia, a man will face trial Monday in an Ottawa courtroom.
Three weeks have been set aside for the Ontario Superior Court trial of Ali Omar Ader, to be heard without a jury.
Lindhout and photographer Nigel Brennan were grabbed by masked gunmen near strife-ridden Mogadishu in August 2008. Both were released on Nov. 25, 2009.
Ader, a 40-year-old Somalian national, faces a criminal charge of hostage-taking for his alleged role as a negotiator.
He was arrested by the RCMP in Ottawa in June 2015. It emerged during pre-trial motions last spring that the Mounties had lured Ader to Canada through an elaborate scheme to sign a purported book-publishing deal.
The Crown opted for a direct indictment in the case, meaning there was no preliminary inquiry.