'Sex killer' Russell Williams officially stripped of Canadian military rank

Ottawa, Dec 11 (ANI): Russell Williams, the former colonel who is serving his life sentence for sexually assaulting and murdering two women, has been officially expelled from the Canadian Forces.

According to the Globe and Mail, Williams was at the helm of Canada's largest air force base, CFB Trenton, when he had brutally murdered two women, one of whom was under his command at the base.

The Department of National Defence has announced that it had retrieved Williams' two medals and commission scroll, a final move that officially booted the colonel out of the military.

The paper quoted Canadian Forces spokesman Cmdr. Hubert Genest as saying that it might not sound like a huge step, but it is a symbolic one.

"We're just satisfied that all the administrative steps were taken and we really wanted the Canadian public to know this so that there's a marker and we can move forward from this point on. I see it like a sentence," he said on Friday.

"When you put the final period at the end of the sentence the period is not much, but it means a lot. So that's what we were doing today," Genest added.

He further stated that the scroll would be torn and the medals cut in small pieces and then thrown out to ensure they can never be re-used.

Williams had two medals: the Canadian Forces Decoration Medal, given for good service, and the South West Asia Service Medal, for having served at least 30 days in Afghanistan. The scroll was an official document confirming that Williams was a serving officer, the paper said.

Williams was convicted in October of first-degree murder in the killings of Corporal Marie-France Comeau, 38, of Brighton in Ontario, and Jessica Lloyd, 27, of Belleville. He also pleaded guilty to 82 fetish break-and-enters and thefts and two sexual assaults, the paper added. (ANI)