Corruption Trial of Men Tied to BC Liberals Hinges on a Secret Witness

From 24 Hours

The B.C. Court of Appeal heard yesterday it would take a police officer an hour to explain complex reasons why a witness should remain secret in the case of three provincial government aides facing corruption charges.

And the Crown suggested charges against David Basi, Bob Virk and Aneal Basi might be dropped if it loses the secret witness appeal.

Virk's lawyer Jim Blazina argued the court should uphold a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that defence counsel be present to hear the testimony with an undertaking not to disclose the secret witness' identity.

Blazina told three justices that the secrecy reasons were extremely unusual.

"You've got to hear a police officer explain for about an hour why there's an informant when usually it takes three sentences," Blazina said.

To ban defence lawyers from hearing the testimony is "going too far in breaching the rights of the accused," he argued.

It was also disclosed that references to the police informant came from the continuation reports of RCMP Insp. Kevin DeBruyckere. The defence has criticized DeBruyckere's role because his brother-in-law is Kelly Reichert, B.C. Liberal party executive director.

On Monday, special prosecutor Bill Berardino said the Crown would not breach informant privilege, opening the possibility of dropping the case if the court rules in favour of the defence.