Ruling in hostage case not expected for months

OTTAWA • The fate of a Somalian man charged with holding Amanda Lindhout hostage is now in the hands of an Ontario Superior Court judge.

Justice Robert Smith reserved judgment Thursday after closing arguments in the 10-day trial of Ali Omar Ader, and is not expected to rule for several months.

Lindhout was a freelance journalist from Red Deer, Alta., when she and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were seized by armed men near Mogadishu in August 2008, the beginning of 15 months in captivity. They were released upon payment of a ransom.

But the saga then entered a new phase: a complex, multi-year police investigation involving a scheme to elicit a confession from Ader, the man suspected of making ransom-demand calls.

Ader developed a business relationship with a man who promised to help publish his book about Somalia. They met in 2013 on the island of Mauritius, where the business agent — an undercover Mountie — says Ader freely spoke of helping the hostage-takers in return for US$10,000 in ransom money.

A purported book contract signing came two years later in Ottawa with the officer and a supposed publisher, all secretly captured on a police video. Again, Ader told the RCMP he was paid to assist the kidnappers. He was arrested the next day.

Ader, 40, pleaded not guilty to a charge of hostagetaking. He told the court that he, too, had been abducted by the gang and forced to be a negotiator and translator.

Ader described being held by the gunmen in an apartment for several months, as well as getting orders from the gang about what to say during calls to Lindhout’s mother, Lorinda Stewart. He told of being beaten, escaping and later surrendering when the hostage-takers made serious threats against his family.

Ader said in Mauritius, he tried to tell the man he believed to be his business agent that he was coerced into helping the kidnappers. But the man wasn’t interested, so he told him what he wanted to hear.

In his closing submissions Thursday, prosecutor Croft Michaelson said Ader’s testimony was “riddled with inconsistencies” and should be rejected.

Ader told the true story of his role in the kidnapping in Mauritius, not in the courtroom, Michaelson said.

Michaelson said Ader spun a “tissue of lies” about being confined by the gang, only to escape one day when his captors were distracted. He questioned the likelihood of a sudden chance to flee, given Ader testified he was allowed to regularly leave the apartment to have meals at restaurants

Michaelson wondered how the accused could make a 2010 call using a phone Ader said the captors took from him months earlier. Michaelson also pointed out Ader mentioned in one recorded call that he was out of town at a time when he was said to be held captive by the group.