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Canada’s justice system apparently failed Anuja Baskaran a second time as the Montreal man charged with her murder saw his case placed under a stay of proceedings on Thursday after a Superior Court judge ruled it took too long for the Crown to prosecute him.

Baskaran, 21, was killed, on Aug. 11, 2012, after her throat was slit. Her estranged husband, Sivaloganathan Thanabalasingham, had been released from custody two months earlier despite heaving pleaded guilty in three cases involving conjugal violence.

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Thanabalasingham was charged with second-degree murder in the case. But on Thursday, Superior Court Justice Alexandre Boucher ruled, at the Montreal courthouse, that it had taken the Crown too long to prosecute the case.

It is the first time in Quebec that a murder case has been placed under a stay of proceedings following the Jordan decision delivered by the Supreme Court of Canada last summer. The decision set limits on how long a person accused of a crime should expect to wait for a trial. In Superior Court cases the limit was set at 30 months. Boucher’s decision was made orally and a written version is expected to be made public at a later date.