Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich to remain in custody over Canada Day weekend
Freedom Convoy chief Tamara Lich will stay in custody over the Canada Day weekend after she was arrested this week for allegedly breaching her bail situations.
Lich was taken into custody in Medication Hat, Alta., on Monday after Ottawa police issued a Canada-wide warrant for her arrest. She was introduced again to the nation’s capital and made a short court docket look Thursday.
Crown prosecutor Moiz Karimjee requested a full day for a bail listening to, which is scheduled to happen on July 5.
Lich stays in custody as a number of teams — most of which fashioned out of the Freedom Convoy — are planning protests in Ottawa beginning on July 1 and persevering with all through the summer time.
She appeared on video from an Ottawa police cell, sporting a gray sweatshirt with the phrases “Freedom Over Concern” printed on it.
Eric Granger, Lich’s defence lawyer, mentioned July 5 was the earliest date obtainable.
“The one new cost she’s been arrested on is a single cost of breaching a single bail situation, [she] can be on her ninth day in custody since her arrest earlier than she even will get the chance to regain her liberty,” he wrote in an electronic mail to CBC.
Lich faces fees of mischief, counselling mischief, obstructing police, counselling to hinder police, counselling intimidation, and intimidation by blocking and obstructing a number of highways in relation to the protest.
The anti-COVID-19-mandate protest shut down some areas of Ottawa for 3 weeks as members parked vehicles and different automobiles on metropolis streets, blocking entry to neighbourhoods and essential arteries round Parliament Hill.
Court docket paperwork contact, communication with different organizers
Lich was arrested on Feb. 17 and spent about 18 days on the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre earlier than she was launched on bail in March on situations which embody staying off social media.
She was subjected to a bail overview final month, however prosecutors have been unsuccessful in making an attempt to have her introduced again into custody for allegedly violating her bail situation that she not assist something associated to the Freedom Convoy.
Lich additionally can not set up any type of protest and is not allowed to contact or talk with 10 different convoy leaders, besides within the presence of counsel.
Court docket paperwork state Lich didn’t adjust to that situation on June 16. That is the identical date she accepted an award throughout a ceremony in Toronto placed on by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), a authorized group and registered charity based mostly in Calgary.
The following day, Stacey Kauder, who describes Lich as a pal, posted a photograph to her Fb web page displaying Lich together with her husband and 4 different attendees on the JCCF gala.
To Lich’s left is a person recognized as Tom Marazzo, a fellow convoy organizer, one of many folks she was ordered to don’t have any contact with except her lawyer is current.
Paperwork filed after her arrest point out photographs of Lich and Marazzo “fingers in arms” including the photographs have been “not for authorized points and no counsel [was] current.”
Additionally they reference a video of Marazzo giving a speech that includes a slideshow of the occupation in Ottawa earlier than Lich reportedly took the stage and spoke to the group about “rights being rescinded.”
The paperwork add that following her speech, Lich makes “bodily contact” with Marazzo as she sits again down on the identical desk with him and he or she “seems to whisper” one thing in his ear, which is described as “communication.”
Associates of the 2 convoy organizers had speculated on social media that Lich was allowed to have contact with Marazzo on the occasion as a result of legal professionals for the JCCF, who additionally symbolize Lich in her civil issues, have been current.
In felony filings for the case, Lawrence Greenspon, who has an Ottawa-based agency, is listed as Lich’s counsel of report.
