Thursday October 5, 2017
Amanda Lindhout broke down as she sat in the witness box, Thursday, describing being kidnapped at gunpoint in 2008. (Larry MacDougal/Canadian Press)
OTTAWA -- An emotional Amanda Lindhout is testifying in the trial of a man accused of kidnapping her in Somalia.
Lindhout sobbed as she approached the witness box to describe her abduction at gunpoint, the beginning of what she calls 460 days of hell.
Lindhout, a freelance journalist from Red Deer, Alta., and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were seized by masked gunmen near Mogadishu in August 2008. Both were released in November 2009.
Ali Omar Ader, a 40-year-old Somalian national, has pleaded not guilty to a criminal charge of hostage-taking for his alleged role as a negotiator.
He was arrested by the RCMP in Ottawa in June 2015.
It emerged during pre-trial motions last spring that the Mounties had lured Ader to Canada through an elaborate scheme to sign a purported book-publishing deal.