{"id":41551,"date":"2024-02-07T19:41:58","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T19:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=41551"},"modified":"2024-02-07T19:42:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T19:42:15","slug":"former-canadian-police-intelligence-head-sentenced-to-14-years-for-leaking-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/02\/07\/former-canadian-police-intelligence-head-sentenced-to-14-years-for-leaking-secrets\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Canadian police intelligence head sentenced to 14 years for leaking secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\u00a0former head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence unit\u00a0has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, months after he was found guilty of leaking state secrets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justice Robert Maranger delivered what he said was a \u201ca fit and just\u201d sentence on Wednesday after a jury convicted Cameron Ortis for violations of the country\u2019s\u00a0Security of Information Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Illustration<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The jury found Ortis guilty in November on three counts of violating the act and one count of attempting to do so. They also found him guilty of breach of trust and fraudulent use of a computer. The charges followed one of Canada\u2019s largest-ever security breaches, a revelation that alarmed Five Eyes allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ortis, 51, had pleaded not guilty to all charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Crown prosecutors, who had asked for 28 years, said Ortis had \u201cjeopardised the safety of Canadians\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ortis, the civilian head of the RCMP\u2019s intelligence unit, was arrested in 2019, after a lengthy internal investigation. His arrest sent shock waves through the intelligence community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trail to Ortis\u2019s arrest began the previous year when the RCMP analysed the contents of a laptop computer owned by Vincent Ramos, the chief executive of Phantom Secure Communications,\u00a0a company which helped produce encrypted smartphones used by organised crime to evade police. Ramos would later plead guilty to using his Phantom Secure devices to help facilitate the distribution of cocaine and other illicit drugs to countries including Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his trial, Ortis told the court he offered secret material to targets as a way of enticing them to use online encryption services that would feed information to allied spy agencies. He also told jurors that he was working to protect the country from an undisclosed \u201cgrave threat\u201d, and that since his arrest his life had been \u201cdestroyed\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the jury sided with the crown, which argued that Ortis had acted in his own interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The closely watched case also exposed the challenges of mounting a defence when accused of stealing state secrets: reporters were barred from covering much of the trial, and portions of testimony and evidence were not made public. Instead, the court released heavily redacted transcripts. Ortis\u2019s lawyer previously remarked that his client was the \u201cthe first Canadian required to testify in their own defence without the ability to tell the jury\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of Ortis\u2019s sentencing, the defence submitted 26 letters of support \u2013 including one from Michael Spavor, the Canadian diplomat who spent nearly three years in a Chinese prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the rising geopolitical storm engulfing our country, we need more people like Cameron Ortis to serve and protect Canada,\u201d Spavor wrote. \u201cThe scale of the challenges we face are such that we can\u2019t afford to waste his talent and energy. We need his hard work, and he needs our mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ortis has already spent three years in jail in pre-trial custody and one additional year on house arrest, giving him a pre-trial custody credit of seven years. Justice Maranger said he can serve the remaining seven years of his sentence near his home in British Columbia. On Wednesday, Ortis\u2019s lawyer said the sentence was \u201ctough\u201d and that his client was \u201cdisappointed\u201d \u2013 but will appeal the decision and seek bail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0former head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence unit\u00a0has been sentenced to 14 years in prison, months after he was found guilty of leaking state secrets. Justice Robert Maranger delivered what he said was a \u201ca fit and just\u201d sentence on Wednesday after a jury convicted Cameron Ortis for violations of the country\u2019s\u00a0Security of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[11261,9306,6975,11866,5268,12913,1953,11017,7960,9194,7421,6613,7340,11282,10507,8041,1458,6144,5494,10697,9997,10848,10197,7351,6580,10419,10776,11018,11804,11973,6332,12114,421,8306,2213,12715,5655,11307,3446,7422,7972,9804,11581,10415,594],"class_list":["post-41551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-accused","tag-appeal","tag-arrest","tag-bail","tag-british","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-case","tag-charges","tag-chinese","tag-cocaine","tag-columbia","tag-convicted","tag-court","tag-diplomat","tag-distribution","tag-drugs","tag-energy","tag-five-eyes","tag-guilty","tag-illicit-drugs","tag-investigation","tag-jail","tag-jury","tag-justice","tag-lawyer","tag-leaking","tag-not-guilty","tag-one","tag-online","tag-organised-crime","tag-police","tag-prison","tag-ramos","tag-redacted","tag-security","tag-sentence","tag-smartphones","tag-spy","tag-storm","tag-testify","tag-trial","tag-work","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41553,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41551\/revisions\/41553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}