A Nova Scotia man who served 17 years in prison for murder was acquitted of the charge Friday after a two-decade struggle to prove he was wrongfully convicted of fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend.
"I proved my innocence here today, after 21 years," Glen Assoun said as he emerged from a Halifax courtroom.Inside the courtroom, his family cried quietly as the Crown dropped the case, effectively exonerating the 63-year-old in the 1995 murder of Brenda LeAnne Way.
"This is a momentous day in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia," Justice James Chipman told the court. "Glen Assoun, you maintained your innocence, you kept the faith with remarkable dignity ... you are to be commended for your courage and resilience.""We have a belief in the factual innocence of Mr. Assoun," he said. "We hope the community of Halifax will welcome him back and embrace him as an innocent man.
"It was devastating to me. It affected my mind. It affected my overall health. I had several heart attacks in prison," the father of four said in an interview at his Halifax-area home. She had suffered multiple stab wounds, her top had been pulled up and her throat was slashed. Court documents say she had been spotted earlier in the evening visiting a crack cocaine dealer.
She testified she saw him in her apartment at 5 a.m. and that he was there when she awoke in the early afternoon. The trial judge, Suzanne Hood, reminded the jury there was evidence that Wise had used crack on the day he'd called Assoun in British Columbia from a pay telephone at the Dartmouth mall. She identified the man as Assoun, based on seeing his photo on a television newscast the day after he was arrested and brought back from British Columbia on April 8, 1998.
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