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Pig farmer appeals conviction
27/02/2008 14:48 - (SA)
Vancouver - A pig farmer convicted of killing six women will not stand trial on another 20 murder charges unless the courts overturn his first conviction, officials said on Tuesday.
Robert "Willy" Pickton is appealing his conviction by a jury last December on six counts of second-degree murder.
The massive trial on a total of 26 charges had previously been split into two parts, and a second trial on 20 charges was expected after the first.
"There will not be a second trial if Pickton's appeal is dismissed and the convictions are upheld," Wally Oppal, attorney general for British Columbia province, told AFP in an interview.
"But if the court allows an appeal and orders a new trial, we will go ahead on all 26 counts."
Prosecutors had successfully argued in Pickton's trial on the first six murders that he lured the women to his area farm, killed them, then butchered and disposed of their body parts by feeding them to pigs, taking them to a rendering plant and storing some parts in buckets and a freezer.
Six life sentences
Pickton, 58, is currently serving six life sentences in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, unless his conviction is overturned.
Oppal said the decision not to proceed with a second trial has nothing to do with cost.
"We never put a price tag on justice. We're very sympathetic to the plight of the victims," said Oppal.
But he said Pickton is already jailed for life and such cases "take a huge emotional toll on everybody."
Oppal said it was possible that a new judge might have broken up the trial on 20 charges into smaller trials, and, "at some stage there has to be closure".
The British Columbia government opposition, however, called for a second trial to proceed.
It is "shocking that this arrogant and insensitive government is informing family members that there may be no trial for the murder of their loved ones," said opposition New Democrat Mike Farnworth in a statement.
All 26 of the dead women were drug-addicted prostitutes from Vancouver's seedy Downtown Eastside.
- AFP
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