An Ontario judge ruled that Joseph Pannell, a married father of four who has lived in the Toronto area for more than two decades, must return to the United States to face charges of attempted murder for the 1969 shooting of police officer Terrence Knox. Pannell, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, has never denied shooting Knox, who was then 21, but said it happened in self-defence after the police officer attacked him.

[Posted By Ryz]

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By Colin Perkel
Republished from National Post

Accused of shooting and paralyzing a Chicago police officer 35 years ago

TORONTO—A man accused of being a militant Black Panther who shot and paralyzed a Chicago police officer more than 35 years ago was ordered extradited on Friday but won’t be facing American justice anytime soon.

An Ontario judge ruled that Joseph Pannell, a married father of four who has lived in the Toronto area for more than two decades, must return to the United States to face charges of attempted murder for the 1969 shooting of police officer Terrence Knox.

After the ruling, Pannell’s wife and four children stood in protest outside the U.S. Consulate located across the street from the downtown courthouse.

“We all have bleeding hearts right now, but this is not over,” said Pannell’s wife, Natercia Coelho.

“He came here because he feared for his life. What happened to him was wrong in ‘69, and what happened today is wrong.”

Pannell, a former Toronto library worker, spent more than two decades living quietly in the west-end suburb of Mississauga under the name Gary Freeman.

He was arrested in July 2004 after the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI asked Canadian authorities to search for matches to his fingerprints.

Ontario Superior Court Justice David Watt ruled that Pannell’s case met the test for extradition because there was sufficient evidence to have committed him to trial had Pannell faced the charges in Canada.

However, it is federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler who must now decide, based on all the facts of the case, whether to turn him over to the Americans.

“Fight this surrender to the end,” lawyer Julian Falconer said Pannell told his defence team.

Pannell’s lawyers now plan to make submissions to the minister, and it will likely be at least six months before a decision, which can also be challenged in the Ontario Court of Appeal, is rendered.

Pannell also said he plans to take Watt’s ruling to the appeals court based on the judge’s decision to disallow cross-examination of the U.S. prosecutor who provided a summary of the evidence against him.

“The ruling speaks to the inherent frailties in the system we have for extradition,” Falconer said.

“The question is why a Canadian court is left in the position where our own system gives us almost no right or opportunity to assess the reliability of the information by which we’re extraditing him.”

Pannell, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, has never denied shooting Knox, who was then 21, but said it happened in self-defence after the police officer attacked him.

“African-American males in the city of Chicago were under siege by police,” Falconer said of the political conditions at the time.

Pannell’s lawyers argue there are major inconsistencies in Knox’s version of what happened March 7, 1969. They also say much of the evidence has long been destroyed, and Pannell could not get a fair trial in the U.S.