By Ryan Patrick Jones
TORONTO, May 29 (Reuters) - A Canadian man accused of selling a legal but potentially deadly chemical online to 14 people who took their own lives is expected to plead guilty on Friday to aiding their suicides, allowing him to avoid a murder trial.
Kenneth Law, 60, is scheduled to appear on Friday morning at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket, Ontario, north of Toronto. He faces 14 counts each of first-degree murder and counselling or aiding suicide related to 14 Ontario residents,
aged 16 to 36, who died by suicide.
Law is expected to plead guilty to the aiding suicide charges under an agreement with Ontario prosecutors that will see the murder charges withdrawn, his lawyer, Matthew Gourlay, told Reuters last month. Law will be sentenced at a later date.
Gourlay has declined to comment further on the case.
Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General declined to comment ahead of the hearing.
Canadian police allege that Law, a trained engineer who worked as a cook at a luxury Toronto hotel before his arrest, operated several websites starting around 2020 which marketed and sold sodium nitrite and other items that could be used by the purchasers to take their own lives.
Sodium nitrite, a salt used in low concentrations as a food additive to cure processed meats, can be deadly when ingested in high concentrations.
Law's case has drawn global attention because of the international reach of his alleged shipments. Ontario investigators have accused Law of mailing at least 1,200 packages to addresses in more than 40 countries, including around 160 in Canada.
Authorities in Britain, Ireland and other countries have opened investigations into whether the products were responsible for deaths in their jurisdictions and conducted welfare checks on those who purchased them.
Britain's National Crime Agency said in April it was investigating potential offences linked to the deaths of 112 people in the UK who bought items to assist with suicide from Canada-based websites tied to a Canadian suspect it did not name.
Law has been in custody since his arrest at his home west of Toronto in May 2023.
A conviction for counselling or aiding suicide carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years, according to Canada's Criminal Code. First-degree murder in Canada carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment with no chance of parole for a minimum of 25 years.
Prosecutors have not publicly confirmed the plea deal, but criminal lawyers have pointed to two rulings that narrowed the path to murder convictions. The Ontario Court of Appeal in 2024 held in an unrelated case that supplying the means of suicide is not attempted murder unless the accused overcomes the victim's free will through manipulation, intimidation or other means.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on the case in December 2025 but did not address the broader legal distinction between murder and aiding suicide.
(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Edmund Klamann)
