Christine Lamont

Christine Lamont was born in 1959 in Langley, British Columbia and a student at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in the late 1980s. During her time at SFU she worked at CFRO-FM, a community radio station, where she met David Spencer. The two became involved in Latin American solidarity activism, supporting left-wing movements like the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas in El Salvador. In 1989, using false passports, the two traveled to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. They spent six months in Managua, supposedly, as translators for a Spanish newspaper.

Biography

In June 1989, the two next traveled to Brazil and sometime between June and December 1989, they made contact with revolutionaries from the Chilean Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). In December, the group kidnapped Brazilian businessman Abílio dos Santos Diniz and demanded $30 million dollars as a ransom. Mr. Diniz was held in a confined underground cell for six days before being rescued by Brazilian police. Ten people were arrested including David Spencer and Christine Lamont. In 1990, the two were both sentenced to 30 years in prison for kidnapping.

Both Lamont and Spencer professed that they were innocent victims and had no involvement in the kidnapping. Their plight became a cause célèbre in Canada and led to a strain in relations between Canada and Brazil. The couple were able to garner a lot of support from family, fellow Canadians, the news media and the Canadian government. Lamont's parents were very active in building support for the two and apparently spent thousands of dollars trying to win their freedom .

While both Lamont and Spencer stated they were innocent, there were several inconsistencies with their story. First, trial transcripts show that the two had rented two houses in São Paulo using false passports and letters of reference. One of these houses was later used to house Diniz. Secondly, these transcripts state that Spencer had obtained the materials for the underground cell later used to house Diniz. Finally, they also state that Spencer had actually participated in guarding the kidnap victim .

Lamont and Spencer continued to maintain their innocence. Their story started to unravel four years later after a secret weapons cache in Managua exploded on May 23 1993. The bunker belonged to the FMLN, which had recently disarmed and signed a UN-brokered peace treaty ending the civil war in El Salvador (the Sandinistas had been out of power in Nicaragua since 1990). Among the material exposed by the explosion were documents linking both Lamont and Spencer to the Diniz kidnapping. Faced with these revelations, Lamont admitted that they had been involved in the kidnapping.

Though initially sentenced to 28 years, in 1996 Spencer and Lamont were released and transferred from their Brazilian prison to Canadian prison. They arrived in Canada on November 21 1998 and in November 2000, they were released on parole.

References

* [http://www.rrj.ca/issue/1996/summer/230/ 1996 article by Isabel Vincent] (the second half of the article discusses the kidnapping and Canadian press coverage)
* Isabel Vincent, "Guilty as Charged," "Saturday Night," Vol. 110, no. 3, April 1995, p. 18.
* [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/1998/11/22/lamont981122.html Lamont and Spencer return home] , "CBC", November 22 1998.
* [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/1999/01/28/lamont990128.html Lamont & Spencer paroled] , "CBC", November 10 2000.
* Shafer Parker, "Arrogant jail birds: a chance for early parole fails to stop Lamont's and Spencer's political posturing," "British Columbia Report," April 27, 1998.

Further reading

* Isabel Vincent, "See no evil." Reed Books Canada, 1996.
* Caroline Mallan, "Wrong time, wrong place?" Key Porter Books, 1996.