Friday October 13, 2017
Ali Omar Ader is shown in court in a 2015 artist's sketch. (Greg Banning/The Canadian Press)
OTTAWA -- An undercover Mountie says Ali Omar Ader admitted receiving $10,000 in ransom money for his role in the kidnapping of Amanda Lindhout in Somalia.
The RCMP officer, who cannot be legally identified, is telling an Ontario court today about how he posed as a businessman to gain Ader's confidence and promise him a book-publishing contract.
Lindhout was a freelance journalist from Red Deer, Alta., when she and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were grabbed by masked men near Mogadishu in August 2008 while working on a story.
Ader, a 40-year-old Somalian national, has pleaded not guilty in Ontario Superior Court to a criminal charge of hostage-taking.
The RCMP officer says he first made contact with Ader by telephone in June 2010, seven months after Lindhout and Brennan were freed.
The officer tells of meeting with Ader on the island of Mauritius and again in Ottawa, where he was arrested and charged in June 2015.