Roger Warren, the man convicted of murder after an explosion at the Giant gold mine in Yellowknife, N.W.T., killed nine people in 1992, has admitted he acted alone and did not intend to kill anyone.
Warren was convicted in 1995 of nine counts of second-degree murder, partly on the strength of an initial confession he made to police. However, he denied his guilt during the trial and had maintained it ever since.
The bombing occurred during a bitter labour dispute at the mine, where Warren worked. The strike and lockout at the Giant mine lasted 19 months, and it was the first time in Canadian mining history that replacement workers were used to break a strike.
Other strikers had set small bombs above ground. There was a riot on the mine grounds during which at least one officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police fired his weapon.
The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, the legal group behind several high-profile overturned verdicts, examined Warren’s case and later rejected it.
In a report based on an interview with Warren, and filed in a Northwest Territories court, a clinical psychologist reported Warren said he acted alone and “that his intent was not to injure any human being.”
In an interview from Manitoba’s Stony Mountain prison, Warren told the Edmonton Journal that the confession felt good: “It’s a relief to be able to say you’re the guy. There are no mysteries here.”
He added that the violent atmosphere at the time of the labour dispute had clouded his judgment. “It was just an atmosphere of lawlessness,” he said. “It got to the point where rational thought was out the window and you just felt justified in doing stuff.”
Added Warren: “I’m terribly sorry it happened. I just hope [the victims’ families] don’t hate me for the rest of my life.”
The territorial workers’ compensation board has filed a civil lawsuit that names mine workers, the RCMP and the territorial government for not doing enough to control the labour dispute. It is scheduled to be heard Sept. 26.
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