Child killer wants media gagged

2005-07-04 21:16

Montreal - Vigilante death threats have so terrorised Canada's most-notorious female inmate that her lawyers argued in court on Monday that the media should be banned from reporting on her whereabouts after her release from prison.

One of her attorneys, Christian Lachance, said Karla Homolka, was terrified about her release from a maximum-security prison outside Montreal, planned for later on Monday.

The widely reviled, 35-year-old former veterinarian's assistant from southern Ontario had completed her 12-year sentence for the rapes and murders of three girls, including that of her little sister.

Lachance told Quebec superior court judge Maurice Lagace that since her safety could be assured by police, the media should be prevented from reporting on her whereabouts to protect her.

But media lawyer Christian Leblanc said Homolka was a public figure and the media had the right and an obligation to report on her whereabouts and activities.

Hoped to settle in Montreal

Leblanc said: "They are trying to prevent the media from doing their work. The release of Karla Homolka is certainly in the interest of the public."

Homolka's father said his daughter had hoped to settle in Montreal.

Tim Danson, a lawyer representing the families of Homolka's teenage victims, Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, said Homolka lost her rights to privacy when she murdered his clients' daughters.

Danson said: "She has to face the consequences of her own actions; there are criminal consequences, there are civil consequences and there are social consequences.

"She can't be involved in what can only be described as participating in the sexual torture and murder of my clients' children, and then expect simply to walk out and not be answerable to it in the court of public opinion."

Homolka became the symbol of evil in Canada in 1993, when she was convicted of manslaughter and given 12 years for her role in the rapes, sexual torture and murders of Ontario teenagers French and Mahaffy.

- AP