Nunavut judge sets new date for twice-adjourned preliminary hearing in Iqaluit

The preliminary hearing into a manslaughter charge against Colin Makpah of Rankin Inlet will take place next December — nearly six months after the preliminary hearing was first scheduled.

That’s what Justice Robert Kilpatrick, the senior judge of the Nunavut court, determined April 2 at an assignment court session at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

The delay is due to what Kilpatrick called an “unfortunate series of events.”

Makpah, 27, is charged in the death of Donald James (D.J.) Gamble, who died after a late-night altercation in Rankin Inlet in August 2010.

The preliminary hearing into the manslaughter charge against Makpah was first adjourned by Kilpatrick on March 26 on Kilpatrick’s request and again on March 28 when Judge Andrew Mahar said there was a lack of security in the courtroom.

The new preliminary hearing date — nearly six months ahead of the original session — will give “lots of time” to the Government of Nunavut to train security guards at the courthouse or to arrange to bring others in “at the public expense to do the job,” Kilpatrick said.

In a statement issued late March 28, after the preliminary hearing was adjourned for the second time, Norman Tarnow, Nunavut’s acting deputy minister of justice, said “we anticipate that we will have an adequate opportunity to arrange for the requested security” when the preliminary hearing was to go ahead April 2.

But instead, that hearing ended up postponed.

During May 7’s assignment court, a date for a preliminary hearing witll be set for Abraham Nakookak, 27, who is also accused on manslaughter in the death of Gamble in 2010.