A Quebec judge has turned down Karla Homolka's request for an injunction that would have prohibited the media from telling certain details about her life after she's released from prison.

Mr. Justice Paul-Marcel Bellavance made the ruling late Wednesday in the Quebec Superior Court in Montreal, after hearing more than two hours of arguments by Homolka's lawyers and those for 11 media outlets that opposed the ban.

Homolka's lawyers had asked for a special injunction that would prevent reporters from covering her release for 10 days, arguing that the coverage could endanger their client.

Karla Homolka
Karla Homolka

However, the judge said that granting the injunction would have impaired the freedom of the press.

Bellavance also agreed with an argument made by the media outlets, saying the public has a right to know Homolka's location because of the severity of her crimes and because another court earlier ruled that she could still be dangerous.

"One day or another, after 12 years of detention, Karla Teale must face the Canadian public and the Canadian media," said Bellavance, calling Homolka by her legal name, Karla Leanne Teale.

Homolka, who has served her entire 12-year sentence for her role in the deaths of two Ontario schoolgirls in the early 1990s, could be released as early as Thursday.

Her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo, is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French.

'Nothing has been done to safeguard my security'

Earlier in the day, Homolka's lawyers told the judge that there were great concerns about their client's safety. They said she had received death threats from people both inside and outside the prison.

"The injunction is necessary to rule out a risk that is real and significant," said one of her lawyers, Walid Hijazi. "This woman is alone and without resources."

Homolka expressed the same concerns in an affidavit requesting the injunction.

"As far as I know, nothing has been done to safeguard my security after my release from prison, and the thought of being relentlessly pursued, hunted down and followed when I won't have any protection makes me fear for my life," she wrote.

"I believe some people wish to do the public a favour by killing me," wrote Homolka, who signed the court document under her legal name of Karla Leanne Teale.

Homolka's lawyers said they met with Corrections Canada, Montreal police and the provincial police in Montreal on Wednesday morning.

They asked for additional security to protect Homolka after her release, but were turned down.

At one point during Wednesday's hearing, the judge asked Homolka's lawyers how a blanket ban on media coverage could be enforced. He pointed out that the Canadian public could learn of her comings and goings from U.S. border television stations, for example.

The lawyers replied that an injunction would at least have a dissuasive effect on Canadian media.

Media outlets defend public's right to know

The media lawyers argued that Homolka has become a public figure because of what she did, and that the public therefore has the right to know details of her post-prison life.

They based their arguments on a restraining order issued earlier this month by another Quebec judge, which described Homolka as a danger to the public and imposed strict conditions on her freedom.

The lawyers said the media has not only a right, but a duty to tell the public where Homolka settles and whether she complies with the judge's restrictions.

Coverage has 'fed' public's hatred, Homolka says

In her affidavit, Homolka said the crimes she committed generated feelings of hate, horror, anger and vengeance, and media coverage has fed those sentiments.

"These feelings have been fed and made worse over the years by the national and international press as well as internet sites around the world."

She said she wants to get on with court-ordered therapy and that that would be impossible if she has to spend the rest of her life managing what she calls the "media circus."

She served her time in a federal prison in Joliette, Que.