Kenneth Law appears in court in Brampton, Ont., on May 3, 2023 in an artist's sketch. Mr. Law is accused of selling a toxic salt to assist people in their suicide attempts.Alexandra Newbould/The Canadian Press
The man accused of providing a toxic salt to people seeking help with suicide is claiming his human rights have been violated multiple times in jail as he awaits trial for 14 counts of murder.
Kenneth Law, who is accused of killing suicidal customers who bought poison from his pandemic-era business, filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario in April. In it, he alleges staff at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton, Ont., violated his rights in multiple ways in the months following his arrest in May, 2023.
He alleged that he was placed on suicide watch when he wasn’t suicidal and that he contracted flesh-eating disease from filthy conditions.
Trial for Kenneth Law, man accused of selling deadly substances online, postponed to 2026
A month after he filed the handwritten complaint, a tribunal registrar notified him that it intended to dismiss it if he didn’t provide more information because he had filed it more than a year after the last alleged incident.
The registrar also told Mr. Law that he had failed to explain how guards had discriminated against him based on “reprisal or threat of reprisal.”
The complaint was ultimately deemed abandoned by the tribunal adjudicator at the end of September after Mr. Law failed to respond by the beginning of the summer.
Mr. Law, who is now being held at the Central East Correctional Centre in Kawartha Lakes, Ont., wrote in his application that he didn’t file the complaint earlier because his lawyer had advised him not to out of “fear of reprisal from jail staff.”
His lawyers have said he plans to plead not guilty to all 28 charges; in addition to the 14 murder charges, he is also accused of aiding their suicides.
Mr. Law’s human-rights complaint also stated that on Oct. 11, 2023, he was in a common room with four other prisoners when he was punched in the face by a mentally ill inmate named “Prince,” leaving him with distorted vision, scratches and other injuries.
He recovered fully and decided not to press charges for fear of retribution from the inmate, he wrote.
“In short, I do not trust the Maplehurst jail staff to keep me safe away, from harm. After that event, I grow worry [sic] to retain my security of person and overly careful with inmate interactions,” he wrote in a supplementary note appended to his complaint.
While at Maplehurst, his complaint stated, guards failed to stop other inmates from hurling racial slurs at Mr. Law, who is an East Asian Canadian. The 60-year-old also alleged he was discriminated against based on his age because he was told “an elderly person is susceptible to flesh eating disease and subsequent complications; it came across as if my age were at fault.”
Mr. Law claimed he was denied access to the weekly service at the jail’s chapel and was only allowed two brief visits with a local deacon.
He also complained he was housed in unsanitary conditions.
“My cell lights were burnt out and I lived in both darkness and squalor,” his application stated.
Four suicides in New Zealand linked to toxic salt parcels shipped from Kenneth Law
Mr. Law is accused of selling a toxic salt during the pandemic to assist people in their suicide attempts, a trade that saw him allegedly ship 1,209 packages to 41 countries, according to police documents unsealed by The Globe and Mail and CBC.
The Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor-General, which oversees detention centres in the province, refused to comment on the allegations made by Mr. Law, stating it does not provide details about individual cases.
Matthew Gourlay, Mr. Law’s lawyer, declined a request to comment on his client’s complaint.
Mr. Gourlay is also representing a nurse in a case before the Supreme Court of Canada that could dramatically affect Mr. Law’s trial, which is slated for next year.
On Friday, the Supreme Court will rule on the appeal of his client, who in 2019 injected lethal levels of insulin into herself, her mother and her 19-month-old daughter. A suicide note was found at the scene, but all three survived, and the nurse was convicted of two counts of attempted murder.
In an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling from last June, a three-judge panel ruled that charges of aiding suicide and murder cannot be laid for the same underlying offence. The ruling said the act of assisting suicide may only evolve into a murder charge when prosecutors can prove the accused “overbore the victim‘s free will.”