After being discharged once on a homicide charge, Demitry Papasotiriou will face the judgment of the court after all.
Ontario’s attorney general decided to directly indict Papasotiriou in late October, according to the Toronto Sun. On Sept 11, Justice Shaun Nakatsuru had discharged Papasotiriou citing lack of evidence. Papasotirou was originally arrested on Nov 2, 2012, more than a year after the body of his husband, Allan Lanteigne, was found at Lanteigne’s home in Toronto’s west end.
The Canadian Criminal Code allows the province’s attorney general, Madeleine Meilleur, to sign a discretionary order superseding the decision of the judge in the preliminary hearing. Papasotiriou’s lawyer, James Lockyer, says he is disappointed with the decision. “I was not happy that the attorney general preferred an indictment,” he says. “It seems to me that rather than bypass the courts she should have waited for the courts to review the decision of Justice Nakatsuru.”
According to Lockyer, these kind of indictments don’t happen often. He says he was also not given an opportunity to argue against the indictment, which he says is the usual course of action.
Jason Gennaro, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Attorney General, tells Xtra that the ministry does not comment on requests for direct indictments in specific cases.
At the time of the alleged murder, Papasotiriou was studying law in Switzerland. Another man — Mladen Ivezic, also known as Michael — was charged and extradited from Greece in 2013. At the time, police alleged the two were co-conspirators in the case. Other details of this case are subject to a publication ban.
Both men were scheduled to appear at the Ontario Superior Court Nov 17, but Ivezic had to go to Scarborough General Hospital. A letter provided to the court said it was for mental health reasons, but his lawyer, Susan Jane von Achten, said that she understood he was in hospital for a hernia surgery.
After appearing before the court, von Achten told Xtra that she believes her client “barely scraped the Sheppard Test” in the preliminary inquiry, referring to the legal test that determines whether there is enough evidence for a jury to convict on.
Papasotiriou, who was released on bail after being recharged, arrived at court Nov 17 in a knee-length fur jacket and wide-brimmed fedora. He declined to comment for this story.
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