REGINA - Former aboriginal leader David Ahenakew will be tried a second time on a charge of wilfully promoting hatred, Saskatchewan's Justice Ministry announced Friday.
Ahenakew's lawyer called the decision "vindictive'' and questioned what a new trial would accomplish.
"It seems cruel and unusual to put a man through another trial when he's already apologized for the spontaneous comment he regrets making,'' said lawyer Doug Christie.
"It's vindictive,'' he said. "Once you've made a statement for which you've apologized, it seems to me there's no evidence of intent to promote hatred.''
Ahenakew was originally convicted in provincial court of wilfully promoting hate and fined $1,000 for comments he made in 2002.
Court heard how the former chief of the Assembly of First Nations referred to Jews as a "disease.'' Ahenakew made the comments when he was approached by a reporter after a speech in which Ahenakew appeared to blame Jews for the Second World War.
He appealed, and his conviction was overturned in 2006.
Chief Justice Robert Laing of Court of Queen's Bench ruled that the trial judge did not properly assess whether Ahenakew had the requisite intent to be convicted of a hate crime.
The Crown then took the case to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal. Last month, that court dismissed the Crown's appeal. It ruled that while Ahenakew's remarks about Jews were "brutal,'' he was not wilfully promoting hatred toward them when he spoke with the reporter.
That decision left the Crown with three options: retry the case, stay the charges or appeal to the Supreme Court.
"In our mind, it was an appropriate case to proceed back to trial on,'' Daryl Rayner, head of the ministry's public prosecutions branch, said Friday. "The case really hasn't been decided.''
Rayner said Ahenakew was originally prosecuted because the Crown believed that there was a reasonable likelihood of success and that it was in the public interest to do so. He said the case still meets that standard.
"I don't think there's any dispute in terms of what took place,'' said Rayner. "It's just whether or not this is an offence or not, and so in our mind this was still appropriate to take before the courts.''
Rayner said he hoped the case could go to trial in provincial court this year.
Reached at his Victoria office Friday afternoon, Christie said the 74-year-old Ahenakew had not yet heard of the decision to proceed with a new trial. But the lawyer was adamant that the fight will continue.
"It'll be strongly contested,'' said Christie. "If I have anything to say about it, there'll be an effort made to resist this criminal charge.''
