Three Packages and a Threat

In April 1994 a 21-year-old woman from Belgrade arrived at Toronto's airport with three packages of heroin, about two kilograms, strapped to her body and a false passport. She admitted both offences. Her defence was duress. She testified that two months earlier a man she believed to be a paid killer from one of the paramilitary groups then roaming Belgrade began approaching her while she walked her dog, knowing more about her each time. He phoned her at home and told her he knew her every move. It escalated to violence: he burned her arm with a lighter and, on another occasion, stuck a syringe into her arm and injected her with something that made her sick. Finally he threatened her mother, with whom she lived. He ordered her to a hotel, strapped the heroin to her, gave her the false passport, a bus ticket to Budapest and money, and told her to fly through Athens to Toronto and deliver the packages to a restaurant. He warned her that if she did not, he would harm her mother. She did not go to the police because she believed they were corrupt and would do nothing; an expert testified that in 1994 Belgrade the rule of law had largely broken down. Section 17 of the Criminal Code allows the defence of compulsion only for threats of immediate death or bodily harm from a person who is present when the offence is committed. The man who threatened her was thousands of kilometres away.