An Elmvale family is celebrating after receiving the news they've been waiting to hear for more than a year.
Janet Spring, says 18 months after her son-in-law, Edwin Espinal, was arrested in his native Honduras, he is no longer behind bars, an affair she's been fighting against since day one.
"When he was first arrested, I thought that I would call our member of Parliament and they would act because he is a part of our Canadian family and that he would be out shortly," said Janet.
It took a lot longer than she expected, but Espinal was granted bail on Friday morning and set free. Karen Spring, his Canadian partner of almost ten years who he married behind the walls of the maximum-security prison, was there to take him home.
"He says it's like he's been born again," said Karen, "he says 'I feel like I've been in a hole for the last year and a half and I'm just seeing everything new for the first time."
Espinal - a human rights advocate - was considered a political prisoner. He was arrested following anti-government protests in his native country; accused of damaging property during a demonstration and held in pre-trial detention in conditions Janet describes as inhumane.
"They live in a cell with nine men with a toilet in the middle of the cell," she says, "the toilets only flush twice a day."
It's a chapter Espinal's wife says he wants to put behind him.
Photographs posted to social media show him leaving the prison on Saturday with his arm around his sister, and in his first moments of freedom, he was off to speak at a concert for political prisoners.
"There's protests every day here in Honduras," says Karen, "so he's like I want to go to a protest, join, get back into it. So he hasn't changed at all in that way."
Espinal's trial is set to begin on Thursday. Both his wife and mother-in-law are expected to be in the courtroom in Honduras. They hope he'll get a fair trial and ultimately want all charges against him dropped.
