The little girl at the centre of an armed standoff in Halifax last year has been permanently taken away from her parents.

This comes on the heels of a highly publicized criminal trial in which Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen were convicted of obstructing a police order and contravening a court order to turn their daughter over to child protection authorities.

VandenElsen was also convicted of firing a shotgun on May 19, 2004, which led to the standoff at the Finck home on Shirley Street, in south-end Halifax.

About 67 hours later, VandenElsen and Finck were arrested as they left the house carrying their baby and the body of Finck's elderly mother, who died of natural causes during the standoff, on a makeshift stretcher.

Police tackled VandenElsen and cut her infant daughter from straps that held the baby to her. The child has been in the care of children's protective services ever since.

During the couple's nine-week trial, VandenElsen and Finck complained about a child protection service that they claimed steals children to fuel an industry of corporate and state kidnapping.

They also said they did not feel they were to blame for any risk to their daughter during the standoff.

At one point Finck told the court he felt his daughter would be better off dead than in the hands of foster care, and that if he had an AK-47 rifle and grenades, the conclusion of the standoff would have been very different.

Finck and VandenElsen will be sentenced June 28. They have filed an appeal, saying the judge in their criminal case erred on a number of matters throughout the trial.

VandenElsen is currently in custody because she's considered a flight risk.

Five years ago, VandenElsen was the subject of a North America-wide search after she fled Ontario with her seven-year-old triplets who had been in her former husband's custody. She was eventually acquitted of abduction charges, but a retrial has been ordered.

Finck was convicted of abducting his own daughter in 2000. He married VandenElsen after he was released from jail.