Amanda Lindhout speaks about Somalia kidnapping during sentencing arguments
Posted Mar 28, 2018 9:49 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A tearful Amanda Lindhout says she has crippling flashbacks and sometimes wakes up screaming due to her kidnapping ordeal in Somalia.
Lindhout tells a sentencing hearing for Ali Omar Ader that the abuse she suffered in captivity filled her with pain and self-hatred.
Ader, a 40-year-old Somalian national, is facing up to life in prison after being convicted of hostage-taking.
Justice Robert Smith ruled in December that Ader was a willing participant in the 2008 kidnapping of Lindhout, who was working as a freelance journalist near Mogadishu at the time.
The judge found little to believe in Ader’s testimony, saying it did not support his claim that he was forced into serving as a negotiator and translator on behalf of a gang who threatened to harm him and his family.
Lindhout, raised in Red Deer, Alta., and photographer Nigel Brennan of Australia were snatched by armed men while pursuing a story, the beginning of 15 months as hostages.
