OTTAWA - A man charged with taking journalist Amanda Lindhout hostage in Somalia is slated to face trial by judge alone next October.
Three weeks have been set aside for the trial of Ali Omar Ader, which will come more than two years after he was arrested and over nine years after the abduction.
Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were seized by masked gunmen near strife-scarred Mogadishu in August 2008. Both were released on Nov. 25, 2009.
Ader, a Somalian national, faces a criminal charge of hostage-taking for his purported role as a negotiator.
He was arrested by the RCMP in Ottawa in June 2015. The Mounties said Ader, 39, had been in town for a few days but the national police force has not publicly confirmed how he arrived in Canada.
At the time, RCMP Asst. Commissioner James Malizia said successfully prosecuting such a case "depends on a certain level of discretion."
