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Correctional Service Canada confirms Luka Magnotta, who made international headlines for the brutal killing of an international student, resides in a medium-security prison.
A jury found Magnotta guilty of first-degree murder in 2014 for the killing and dismemberment of 33-year-old Concordia University student Jun Lin in 2012. Magnotta admitted to causing Lin’s death, dismembering him and sending his body parts to political parties and schools with threatening messages.
Magnotta admitted to causing Lin’s death, dismembering him and sending his body parts to political parties and schools with threatening messages. Experts testified during trial that Magnotta suffered from schizophrenia and wasn’t of sound mind the night of Lin’s slaying.
The correctional service says the convicted killer was transferred to a medium-security prison in 2022. Magnotta was in a maximum-security institution in Quebec before the transfer and continues to serve an indeterminate life sentence."
A political firestorm erupted when serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo was moved
from maximum to medium security last May.
But nine months before that, another high-profile murderer was quietly transferred to the same
prison and with the knowledge of the then Public Safety Minister's office.
Luca Magnotta spent nearly a decade at Port Kaftier Maximum Security Penitentiary for
killing and dismembering international student June Lin in 2012.
In the summer of 2022, Correctional Service Canada approved Magnotta's transfer to the
medium security facility La Macasa, northwest of Montreal.
In a medium security institution, you're going to have more mobility within the prison.
At the end of the day, they're both prisons though.
CSC says it flagged the move twice to former Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino's
office.
Once in May 2022 and then again in August of that year.
But it only became public in the last few days.
When Bernardo was moved to La Macasa, Mendicino said he wasn't informed until after the transfer.
It's not clear if or when he was notified about Magnotta.
Opposition parties are questioning the CSC's decision to transfer another reviled killer
out of maximum security.
He's an appropriate recipient of public anger and that's understandably justified.
But what's difficult here is when politicians seize on this political opportunity to not
explain how the system works.
Magnotta continues to serve an indeterminate life sentence at La Macasa.
Legal experts say given the depravity of his crimes, they're slim to no chance he will
ever be released on parole.
Toria Israet, Global News, Ottawa.
