"It's finally over": Frank Ostrowski pleased to have canceled his murder conviction

Frank Ostrowski is relieved to finally see his conviction for first degree murder allowing him to travel outside Manitoba and enjoy his freedom after decades of maintaining his innocence.

"It's finally over," he told CBC News Wednesday morning.

The Manitoba Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday on the Ostrowski case, saying the 1986 conviction for Robert Nieman's murder in 1986 should be overturned.

The decision goes on to say that, given the time and years Ostrowski has spent behind bars, no new trial should be called for the moment. The decision rather calls for a judicial stay of proceedings.

However, the court did not go as far as acquitting him.

& # 39; The ropes are cut & # 39;

Ostrowski was fighting for an acquittal and said the court was "on the wrong track".

Still, he said that he was just happy to have a fresh start in life.

Ostrowski was released on bail in 2009 after 23 years of imprisonment after the Federal Ministry of Justice began to consider Ostrowski 's case as a possible wrongful conviction.

His freedom was hampered by his conviction, he said, and he lived under a number of conditions.

"The murder has disappeared from my back, I can now take my pbadport and go to Cuba and have fun without asking the Crown and my lawyers if I can go," he said.

"I can go fishing in Kenora, which I could not do for nine years. I could not go because it was outside of Manitoba. I have to ask permission whenever I go. Where are you going? Make & # 39; The ropes are cut. "

Failure to disclose evidence

At the heart of Ostrowski's appeal, it was a question of whether the essential evidence had been disclosed to his lawyers. This included an agreement between the prosecution and his key witness to suspend his drug charges when he testified against Ostrowski, as well as a report from an officer contradicting the witness's testimony.

The report states that the Winnipeg police received a suggestion that a "hit" would have been ordered. However, the officer wrote that the coup had not been brought against Nieman, the man Ostrowski was convicted of murder.

This evidence was presented at hearings held in late 2016 and early 2017 in the Manitoba Court of Appeal.

In its decision, the Court of Appeal concluded that the fact that the Crown did not disclose this evidence had compromised the defense of Mr. Ostrowski, his lawyer having been able to use it to challenge the credibility of important details of the case dependent.

However, the decision adds that this does not render the testimony of the witness totally unreliable and that a jury can always reasonably convict Ostrowski if a new trial is ordered.

3 convicted men

Ostrowski was one of three men convicted of the murder of Nieman.

Robert Dunkley was found guilty of pulling the trigger and sentenced to life in prison. Jose Luis Correia was sentenced to life imprisonment, but he was quickly released and deported to his home country, Portugal.

Former Manitoba Justice attorney George Dangerfield pursued Ostrowski's case. (CBC)

The Crown Attorney in the Ostrowski case was George Dangerfield, who had also prosecuted three high profile cases in which the accused had been wrongly convicted: James Driskell, Kyle Unger and Thomas Sophonow. He has since retired.

The three cases have similarities to Ostrowski's:

• Driskell was convicted of murder in Winnipeg in 1990, in part based on the testimony of a witness to whom tens of thousands of dollars had been paid as expenses, as well as a relative immunity to a charge of arson. The verdict against Driskell was overturned in 2006.
• Sophonow was exonerated in 2000, after his wrongful conviction for the death of Barbara Stoppel, a 16-year-old waitress, in 1981. Sophonow was convicted of having strangled her, partly on the basis of her death. a confession that Sophonow would have given to a man in prison. The Crown never revealed that the informant had negotiated that the charges against him be dropped in exchange for his testimony.
• Unger was convicted of killing a teenager at a music festival in 1990, based in part on hair samples found at the scene. DNA tests years later showed that the hair did not belong to him and he was acquitted in 2009.

A publication ban is in effect for some new evidence presented during the appeal process regarding the possibility of "improper conduct by the Crown".