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If he secures early release, he could be free in time for the next federal election.

“It’s not much … it took me longer to get better,” his victim told English-language reporters outside a Montreal courtroom.

“In 16 months, he’ll look normal, he’ll be able to change his name and in 16 months I’ll still be scarred.”

Ms. St-Arnauld suffered burns to 20% of her body in the Aug. 26, 2012 attack.

Despite numerous skin grafts and reconstructive surgeries, she still has raised purple burns on her arms and neck. The woman, who has become a mother in the two years since the attack, said, “My son will grow up and ask, ‘Mom, what happened to you?’ ”

On Wednesday, she is due to have stitches removed from a more recent surgery.

“I’m going to be able to wash my hair properly,” said Ms. St-Arnauld.

‘In 16 months, he’ll look normal, he’ll be able to change his name and in 16 months I’ll still be scarred’

In the seconds after the chemical began eating into her skin, she had been able to stem the burning by stripping off her clothes and sprinting down the hall to rinse off in her neighbour’s bathtub.

But the acid had already torn third-degree burns across her upper body, and burned away a five-inch-wide channel down the back of her scalp.

By the time paramedics rushed her to hospital, her condition was so severe she needed to be placed in a drug-induced coma twice.

“She was suffering, she was yelling … they saw her skin literally melt off,” Ms. St-Arnauld’s brother told CBC at the time, describing the neighbour’s first encounter with his burned sister.

The crime is more expected in a rural area of Cambodia or Pakistan, rather than a Montreal suburb. News of the shocking assault soon gained Ms. St-Arnauld a network of supporters around the globe and she received hundreds of messages of support on social media.