News

Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer in prison for killing his severely handicapped daughter, is appealing the National Parole Board's decision to deny him release.

The appeal was filed Wednesday on Mr. Latimer's behalf by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and argued Mr. Latimer is not a danger to society and does not need to be rehabilitated.

“Mr. Latimer is requesting immediate release by the appeal division on the basis that the decision under appeal cannot be supported in law ... and on the basis that a delay in releasing Mr. Latimer from imprisonment would be unfair,” wrote the association's Jason Gratl in his letter of appeal.

Mr. Latimer is serving a life sentence for the murder of his disabled daughter Tracy.

She was born with cerebral palsy and had the mental capacity of a three-month-old.

Although he initially denied killing Tracy, Mr. Latimer later admitted he placed his daughter in his truck and killed her by funnelling the vehicle's exhaust into the cab.

He has maintained he did it to prevent her constant suffering and that the medical system offered him no hope she would ever be free of excruciating pain.

The parole board denied him parole in December, saying, among other things, that he showed no remorse for his actions.

But John Dixon, of the civil liberties association, said in a news release the parole board ignored its function by refusing to release Mr. Latimer.

“The panel that denied his parole was plainly more interested in extracting a tearful apology from Mr. Latimer than it was in performing its proper function,” said Mr. Dixon.

The association argued the Corrections and Conditional Release Act requires that the board consider only the offender's risk of committing an offence while on parole and whether the offender's release is consistent with his reintegration into the community.