Ahenakew scored a legal victory Monday when the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld a lower court's ruling throwing out his hate-crime conviction and ordering a new trial.

The disgraced aboriginal leader's lawyer welcomed the ruling and asked the Crown to back off so his 74-year-old client can have some peace. But Jewish groups pushed prosecutors to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada and clarify the ruling, which they say raises the bar for conviction under Canada's hate laws.

"We think it's wrong," said Steven Slimovitch, a lawyer for the Jewish advocacy group B'nai Brith, which was an intervener in the appeal.

"There's no question it opens the door for someone to wilfully promote hatred as long as they didn't spend excessive time planning and preparing and deliberating about it."

Ahenakew was originally convicted in provincial court of wilfully promoting hate and fined $1,000 for comments he made to a reporter in December 2002.

Court heard how the former chief of the Assembly of First Nations referred to Jews as a "disease" and appeared to endorse the actions of Adolf Hitler. Ahenakew made the comments when he was approached by the reporter after giving a 45-minute, profanity-laced speech in which he blamed Jews for the Second World War.

But his conviction was overturned by Chief Justice Robert Laing of Court of Queen's Bench, who ruled the trial judge did not properly assess whether Ahenakew had the requisite intent to be convicted of a hate crime.

Laing pointed out that the reporter approached Ahenakew for an interview and his hateful remarks were made spontaneously in response to questions.

In appealing Laing's ruling the Crown had argued that Ahenakew, who had given countless interviews as a First Nations leader, knew he was talking to a reporter and could have offered no comment to the question he was asked.

But the three judges on the Court of Appeal unanimously sided with Laing. They said Ahenakew's remarks about Jews were "brutal," but not necessarily criminal.

"Mr. Ahenakew's comments, on any standard, were shocking, brutal and hurtful. However, that is not the measure of the offence prescribed by ... the Criminal Code," wrote Justice Robert Richards on the court's behalf.

"It engages only in circumstances where a person 'wilfully promotes' hatred against an identifiable group. I agree with the appeal judge that, at trial, there was a failure to consider all of the evidence relevant to the question of whether Mr. Ahenakew had the intent necessary for a finding of guilt."

Crown lawyer Dean Sinclair said it's too early to say what the next move will be.

"We're in the process of reviewing it and considering where we go from here," Sinclair said. "There really is not a lot more I can say at this point until we have had a chance to look through the whole judgment."

Ahenakew could not be reached for comment, but his Victoria-based lawyer, Doug Christie, said his client is "quite relieved."

"He was quite pessimistic, but I think, in a sense, it has given him a new hope in life that he can get on and live a few more years in peace and with some respect from his elders and his people," Christie said in a telephone interview.

"If I was a resident of Saskatchewan I would be writing to the attorney general telling him, in the interests of fairness and wisdom, this should be left without further litigation because certainly Mr. Ahenakew, who has apologized, has suffered enough."

The Canadian Jewish Congress echoed B'nai Brith's call to prosecutors.

"What the justices have done is they have held the issue of wilfulness to an extremely high standard and the real question is going to become whether or not it should be at this high standard," said CEO Bernie Farber.

"That is something that I think needs to go to the Supreme Court."

But at least one legal expert said that position misinterprets what the Appeal Court found.

It merely concurred with the Court of Queen's Bench, which found that the provincial court judge did not properly account for evidence that spoke to Ahenakew's intent, said Sanjeev Anand, a former Crown prosecutor who is now a law professor at the University of Alberta.

"There's no new law here," Anand said. "I think the bar is set in exactly the same place it was before the first trial."

Following the original verdict, Ahenakew was removed from the Order of Canada, becoming at the time only the second person to be stripped of the honour.

The Governor General's office has said that removal is permanent because his actions "brought disrepute to the order."

As well, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations removed Ahenakew, who was one of the federation's senators, from all his positions.

There have, however, been signs that the federation is welcoming him back. He recently sat on a task force that developed treaty implementation principles approved by the federation's chiefs.

Last year, the federation confirmed it had asked its senate to determine if it was possible under existing policy for an individual to be reinstated. That came after at least one chief suggested First Nations could benefit from Ahenakew's experience.

A spokewoman with the federation did not return calls Monday.

ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/crime_ahenakew_hate