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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

No regrets for killing daughter: Latimer

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 02/18/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Robert Latimer: 'the right thing' (THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES)

Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan man sentenced to life for killing his severely disabled daughter in 1993, said he would do so again if he had to, in his first interview since being released from prison.

In the CBC interview, Latimer, who now lives in Victoria where he abides by strict parole rules, slammed what he said is an "inflexible and malicious" justice system that showed "a real eagerness to do as much damage to me, especially, as they possibly could."

The mercy killing of his 12-year-old daughter, Tracy, launched a debate over euthanasia. Tracy suffered severe pain from cerebral palsy and could not walk, talk or feed herself. Latimer decided to end her suffering by pumping exhaust from his truck into the cab, asphyxiating Tracy.

His original jury trial convicted him of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. A subsequent appeal had the sentence lessened to two years less a day, but a final appeal to the Supreme Court upheld the original sentence.

Latimer, 58, was granted full parole in December after serving nine years of his sentence, and three years after he told a parole hearing he still believed killing Tracy was the right thing to do.

"People think it's a hard question, but it's not," Latimer said when asked if he would go through with the mercy killing again if he had to. "It was the right thing to do. She'd had enough."

His only regret, Latimer said, was that spending nearly a decade in prison took him away from sharing time with his other children on his farm.

Latimer said he would like a retrial, with "a jury to decide (his culpability), not a bunch of shysters."

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 18, 2011 A19

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