Polygamy cases quashed

A judge has quashed polygamy charges against two leaders of a polygamous community in western Canada.

The judge said the province's attorney-general did not have the authority to appoint a second special prosecutor to consider the cases of Winston Blackmore and James Oler after the first special prosecutor recommended against charging the two men.

Authorities arrested the leaders of rival polygamous factions in Bountiful, a town in southeastern British Columbia, in January.

Blackmore was charged with marrying 20 women and Oler was accused of marrying two women.

Blackmore, long known as "the Bishop of Bountiful", runs an independent sect of about 400 members.

He once ran the Canadian arm of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but was ejected in 2003 by that group's leader, Warren Jeffs. Oler is the bishop of Bountiful's FLDS community loyal to Jeffs.