Canadian Court Says Police Religious Ruse Did Not Violate Murder Defendants' Religious Freedom

In Regina v. Welsh, (ON Ct. App., April 2, 2013) the Court of Appeal of the Canadian province of Ontario upheld that an elaborate ruse in which an undercover policeman posed as a practitioner of the Jamaican Obeah spiritual-mystical system to obtain incriminating statements from two of three co-defendants in a first-degree murder case. The court rejected arguments that the undercover operation violated defendants' religious freedom protected by Sec. 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In a 91-page opinion, the court also rejected a number of other challenges to the undercover operation and the admission into evidence of the incriminating statements. The Toronto Star reports on the decision.