Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Leach will remain in custody over Canada Day weekend after she was arrested this week for alleged breach of bail conditions.
Leach was detained in Medicine Hat, Alta, on Monday after Ottawa police issued an arrest warrant for her across Canada. She was returned to the nation’s capital and briefly appeared in court on Thursday.
Crown Prosecutor Moiz Karimji requested a full-day bail hearing, scheduled for July 5th.
Leach remains in custody as several groups – most of them formed by the Freedom Convoy – plan protests in Ottawa that begin on July 1 and continue throughout the summer.
She appeared in a video from a police cell in Ottawa wearing a gray sweatshirt with the words “Freedom over Fear” printed on it.
Eric Granger, Leach’s lawyer, said July 5 was the earliest date available.
“The only new charge on which she has been arrested is a single charge of violating a bail condition, [she] he will be in custody on his ninth day after her arrest, before even being given the opportunity to regain his freedom, “he wrote in an email to the CBC.
Leach faces accusations of accidents, mischief advice, obstruction of the police, advice to obstruct the police, advice to intimidate and intimidate by blocking and obstructing one or more highways in connection with the protest.
The protest against the COVID-19 mandate closed some areas of Ottawa for three weeks as participants parked trucks and other vehicles on city streets, blocking access to neighborhoods and major arteries around Parliament Hill.
Court documents contact, communication with other organizers
Leach was arrested on Feb. 17 and spent about 18 days at the Ottawa-Carlton Detention Center before being released on bail in March on terms that included being off social media.
She underwent a bail review last month, but prosecutors failed to try to get her back in custody for allegedly violating her release condition on bail that she did not support anything related to the freedom convoy.
Leach also cannot organize any kind of protest and is not allowed to contact or communicate with 10 other convoy leaders except in the presence of a lawyer.
Court documents show that Leach did not comply with this condition on June 16. This is the same date on which she accepted an award during a ceremony in Toronto, organized by the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), a legal organization and registered charity based in Calgary.
The next day, Stacey Cowder, who described Leach as a friend, posted a photo on her Facebook page showing Leach with her husband and four others attending the JCCF gala.
To Leach’s left is a man identified as Tom Marazzo, a fellow convoy organizer, one of the people she was ordered not to have contact with unless her lawyer was present.
Tamara Leach, fourth from the left, was ordered by a judge not to have contact with fellow convoy organizer Tom Marazzo, second from the right. This photo shows the group in Toronto after Leach accepted his JCCF Freedom Award. (Facebook / Stacey Cowder)
Documents filed after her arrest cite photos of Leach and Marazzo “hand in hand”, adding that the photos “are not for legal matters and without a lawyer [was] present. “
They also cite a video of Marazzo giving a speech featuring a slideshow of the Ottawa occupation before Lich reportedly took the stage and spoke to the crowd about the “revocation of rights.”
The documents add that after his speech, Leach made “physical contact” with Marazzo while sitting at the same table with him again, and she “seems to be whispering” something in his ear, which is described as “communication.”
Friends of the two convoy organizers speculated on social media that Leach was allowed to have contact with Marazzo at the event because JCCF lawyers, who also represent Leach in her civil cases, were present.
In the criminal documents in the case, Lawrence Greenspan, who owns an Ottawa-based company, is listed as Leach’s lawyer.
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