A judge has awarded a convicted killer and prison escapee $500,000 in damages, plus interest, after ruling that the federal government extradited him to Mexico despite knowing he faced a substantial risk of torture.

The ruling by Federal Court Justice Sébastien Grammond is believed to be the first in which a court has awarded damages for Canadian complicity in torture abroad. Mexico had provided diplomatic assurances that Régent Boily would not be tortured, and on that basis, courts in Quebec upheld his extradition, and the federal justice minister, who has the final say, allowed it to go ahead in August, 2007.

But federal government memos showed that, two days before Mr. Boily, then in his early 60s, was to be returned to Mexico, Canadian consular officials discovered that he was to be placed in the prison he had escaped from – an escape that cost a prison guard his life.

Two consular officials expressed their concerns about Mr. Boily’s safety in writing, and immediately asked Mexico to transfer him to another prison. But the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs decided not to intervene, and the consular officials stopped pushing for the transfer.

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