HALIFAX — Glen Assoun, the Nova Scotia man wrongfully convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend in 1999, has died, his longtime lawyer confirmed Thursday.
Sean MacDonald said Assoun, 67, died suddenly Wednesday night while he was at a restaurant in Dartmouth, N.S.
"I am heartbroken," MacDonald said in an interview. "Over the course of 14 or 15 years, he had become like family to me."
Assoun was found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in September 1999 for the stabbing death of Brenda Lee Anne Way in a back alley in Dartmouth — a crime that has yet to be solved. Assoun spent 16 years behind bars.
The court heard Way's partly clothed body was found behind an apartment building on Nov. 12, 1995. The 28-year-old woman had been stabbed six times and her throat was slashed. Assoun, who was living in British Columbia when he was arrested two years later, had always maintained his innocence.
Assoun represented himself at his trial after firing his lawyer three days into the court proceedings.
MacDonald began reviewing the case in 2006.  "For years and years, it was just him and I on the phone and nobody else — the better part of a decade," the lawyer said. Eventually lawyer Phil Campbell also came on board, and then in 2010, MacDonald and Campbell persuaded the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted to get involved.
Four years later, the federal Justice Department said a preliminary assessment determined there could have been a miscarriage of justice, and an in-depth investigation was ordered before Assoun was released from prison on strict conditions in November 2014.
"It's been a long, terrible journey for me," Assoun said as he left the same Halifax courthouse where he had been convicted in 1999. "I lost my freedom and my liberty in this building for something I didn't do."
In March 2019, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court dismissed Assoun's conviction and a new trial was ordered. But the Crown declined, saying there wasn't a realistic prospect for a conviction.
In July of that year, the court released the preliminary assessment, which found the RCMP had chosen not to disclose an investigator's theories about other suspects in the murder case. As well, the document showed the Mounties destroyed most of this potential evidence.
The document also said federal Justice Department lawyer Mark Green found that Assoun's lawyer in his unsuccessful 2006 appeal  — Jerome Kennedy — had specifically asked the Crown to disclose this type of information, but he never received it.
After the preliminary assessment was released, the RCMP issued a statement saying the files were deleted for "quality control purposes," but the actions were "contrary to policy and shouldn't have happened."
In public, Assoun appeared to be a shy, soft-spoken man. In private, he was an "earnest, sincere and warm ... human being who loved his family and ... the short list of people that he trusted in his life," MacDonald said. "And I'm fortunate to have been on that list."
Assoun agreed to an undisclosed compensation deal with the Nova Scotia and federal governments in March 2021.
MacDonald said Assoun was among those who advocated for the creation of an independent commission dedicated to reviewing miscarriage of justice applications. The commission, which is the subject of federal legislation introduced in February, would replace the ministerial review process that led to the dismissal of Assoun's conviction — a process that took years to complete.
The proposed commission could speed up that process "so that the suffering ends quicker for the people in prison, their families and the families of the victims," MacDonald said.
"I think we're on the precipice of having it happen," he added. "That is ... one of the two main goals that he set out to achieve when he was exonerated."
Assoun's tragic case also marked the first time in Canada that an independent criminal investigation was launched into the conduct of police officers during a previous investigation.
"Those are two very important legacy points I'm hopeful will live on long after Glen's death," MacDonald said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2023.
Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press
