Judge cites threat to global community in sentencing Lindhout kidnapper
OTTAWA — A judge has sentenced a Somalian man to 15 years in prison for the kidnapping of Amanda Lindhout, saying hostage-taking is a threat to the international community that deserves significant punishment.
Ali Omar Ader sat silently in the prisoner’s box as Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith handed down the sentence Monday.
It could be the final chapter in a nightmarish odyssey that began a decade ago in East Africa.
Smith ruled in December that Ader, 40, was a “willing participant” in the 2008 hostage-taking of Lindhout, who was working as a freelance journalist near Mogadishu at the time.