The famous secret trial held in Quebec, which mystifies the judiciary and politicians for the week, would be linked to a file of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) piloted by federal crown prosecutors, according to sources familiar with the file.
Posted at 9:53 a.m.
According to our sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about this confidential file, the accused was an RCMP informant in an investigation into organized crime. When he himself was accused of a crime, the police and prosecutors devised a way to try him in secret to protect an ongoing investigation.
The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) was not involved in this prosecution. It is rather the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) which would have been implicated. This week, the PPSC said it could neither confirm nor deny its involvement in the case. On Tuesday, the RCMP declined an invitation to comment on the case after being contacted by The Press.
No Quebec police force would be involved in the criminal investigation, still according to our information.
This morning, the bosses of several journalistic organizations published an open letter addressed to the three chief justices of Quebec to carry out a thorough review of the practices of the courts in terms of transparency.
Last Friday, The Press revealed how the Court of Appeal is alarmed to have discovered the recent holding in Quebec of a secret criminal trial of which all traces had been erased. A person would have been condemned for a crime whose nature remains confidential, within the framework of a process “contrary to the fundamental principles” of justice and “incompatible with the values of a liberal democracy”.