Amanda Lindhout attends a reception held in her honour by the Alberta Somali-Canadian community in Calgary on Sunday Feb. 21, 2010. Lindhout was kidnapped in Somalia in 2008 and held for more than a year before being released in late 2009. (Larry MacDougal/Canadian Press)

Ali Omar Ader has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his central role in the kidnapping of Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout in 2008.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith delivered his decision in Ottawa Monday morning.

Lindhout — a freelance journalist from Red Deer, Alta. — and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan were nabbed by masked gunmen near strife-ridden Mogadishu in August 2008 while pursuing a story. Lindhout was 28 at the time.

The two were released on Nov. 25, 2009.

During the trial, the court heard that Ader acted as a negotiator for the hostage-takers and threatened to kill Lindhout if the ransom wasn't paid.

Smith said he found Ader's defence — that he was forced to act as the main negotiator and translator in the hostage-taking — "completely unbelievable."

Ader was given credit for the time he spent in pretrial custody, knocking almost six years off his sentence.

The 40-year-old Somalian national was found guilty on one charge of hostage-taking for his role as a negotiator in December.

Amanda Lindhout's kidnapper sentenced to 15 years in prison

Ali Omar Ader, convicted in December of journalist's kidnapping in Somalia, gets credit for time served