The Nova Scotia police watchdog is negotiating with a civilian organization who could potentially investigate the role of police in the wrongful conviction of Glen Assoun, according to provincial Justice Minister Barbara Adams.
She said the Serious Incident Response Team (SiRT) is responsible for finding an independent organization to take on the case.
“We are aware that there is a civilian organization that is interested and willing to take the case on, but right now they’re going through the process of determining if they are able to do so,” Adams told reporters Thursday.
Glen Assoun, from Halifax, was wrongfully convicted in 1999 of murdering his ex-girlfriend. He was acquitted in 2019, after spending 16 years in jail. He died in June 2023.
Police in B.C. were originally supposed to look into the case, but they determined they didn’t have the capacity to take it on.
The investigation would look into whether RCMP in Nova Scotia destroyed evidence that was used in Assoun’s wrongful conviction.
Adams said this investigation “absolutely needs to happen.”
Everyone would have liked it to happen faster, she said, but it’s challenging trying to find an organization who has the “capacity to take something like this on.”
Adams also couldn’t provide a timeline for when negotiations between SiRT and the civilian agency would conclude.
She said SiRT would have more details on the selection process.
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