Big trial not a problem for courts in Montreal

When Luka Rocco Magnotta arrives in Montreal from Germany, he will be greeted by Québec justice officials who are well versed in hand-ling notorious criminals. After dealing with the high-profile trial of Hells Angels boss Maurice (Mom) Boucher in 2002 and the media circus that accompanied Karla Homolka's court appearance in Joliette in 2005, justice officials should be able to handle the media frenzy that would accompany a trial for Magnotta. After a worldwide man-hunt, Magnotta was arrested in Berlin Monday in connection with the gruesome murder and dismemberment of Jun Lin, a Concordia computer science student. Magnotta, 29, allegedly filmed the crime and then mailed some of the body parts to the Conservative and Liberal parties' headquarters in Ottawa. Now that he has been arrested, Ottawa will apply to have him extradited from Germany. If Magnotta contests the extradition request, it could be months before he is back in Montreal, said René Ver-ret, a spokesperson for the directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales in Quebec City. "If he doesn't contest, it could be very quick, a few days or a few weeks," Verret said. Upon arrival in Montreal, he will be taken into custody and shortly after will appear before a judge to face several charges, including first-degree murder. If Magnotta pleads not guilty, he will face a trial by judge and jury at the court-house in Old Montreal. It could then be months be-fore his trial would begin. Magnotta's trial could be held in Room 5.15, which can accommodate a large number of media and members of the public. The room was used to hold the inquest into the 2008 police-shooting death of teenager Fredy Villanueva. The judge in the case could also decide to hold the trial in a smaller courtroom and allow the many journalists expected to attend to have ac-cess to the proceedings via a video link, said a Quebec justice official, who spoke only on the condition that his name not be published. Extra rooms were set aside last month so students could watch the arraignments of 20 fellow students who were arrested for blocking access to the Jacques Cartier Bridge in the dispute over tuition fee increases. Quebec justice officials have made several provisions to handle high-profile cases over the past decade. After police rounded up several members of the Hells Angels and their associates starting in 2001, two megatrials took place in a specially built $16.5-million courthouse next to the Bordeaux jail in north-end Mont-real. When Boucher was tried at the courthouse in Old Montreal, jurors sat behind opaque glass and were identified only by numbers. People with any kind of logo on their clothing, or tattoos, were not allowed into the courtroom, and security guards searched people and their bags before letting them into the court. When Homolka made a court appearance just prior to her release from prison in 2005, local police in Joliette closed the street in front of the courthouse because so many media outlets had invaded the town. Inside the courthouse, bilingual employees gave out-of-town reporters tours of the courthouse to ensure they found the right court-room.