Yrys
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
- 11
- Points
- 430
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070120.wxcoblatch20/BNStory/National/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20061204.wxbikers04
The phrase that leapt out at me in the parole-eligibility report that was prepared for Kuldip Singh Samra's faint-hope hearing was this: "Mr. Samra is well-known for his baking at Ferndale."
Well, that's good. Mr. Samra is a convicted multiple murderer who fled Canada and evaded justice for a decade and who, even now, blames his victims for making him shoot them -- but God forbid he shouldn't be baking up a storm and otherwise broadening his horizons at the Ferndale (minimum security) Institution.
...
But it is in the most recent psychiatric evaluation where that is revealed as a crock.
Dr. Johann Brink interviewed Mr. Samra just last year for almost four hours, and found that despite the testimonials to the contrary, and his own proclamations of new wisdom, "Mr. Samra has still not accepted his conviction of first-degree murder," still blames the trial judge for not having accepted his explanation of manslaughter (after all, as he still says, he was at the dentist's earlier that day, so how on Earth could he have had the necessary intent to kill?), still blames the other side in the temple case for making his "blood boil" that day and, critically, remains the unbridled narcissist he has always been.
In his time with Dr. Brink, Mr. Samra went to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate his own goodness (born with, it appears, what the doctor describes as his "life-long identification with Mahatma Ghandi -- well sure, but for the murders and attempted murder, the men are indistinguishable one from the other), detailed his shootings "without any discernible emotionality" and, while he's less loud and intolerant than he was 15 years ago, showed that his narcissism is, in the main, intact.
In other words, while incarcerated, Mr. Samra learned to pretend he's sorry, sort of, but neither means nor feels it.
As another psychological evaluation, done in 2001, noted, "He also projects a victim stance position with relation to his criminal charges," and described his opponents that long-ago day in court as "almost thuggish in their behaviour."
Mr. Samra's lawyer, Dan Scully, argued this week in his opening statement that his client has changed in prison and that his good behaviour should entitle him to early release. Not so, said Crown attorney Allison Dellandrea, who, with senior Crown Paul Culver, is vigorously opposing any such break. "If you accept that this conduct makes him deserving of some kind of 'reward' " she told the jurors, "he has already received his sizable reward" -- his place at lovely Ferndale.
Another decade of baking there, I say. It's not quite "Off with his head!" but, this being Canada, it will have to do.