Canadian ex-intelligence officer sentenced to 14 years on state secrets charges
A former civilian director of an elite Royal Canadian Mounted Police intelligence unit was sentenced Wednesday to 14 years in prison after conviction last year of giving confidential operational information to four men targeted by police investigations.
The sentence is half of what prosecutors sought for the intelligence official, Cameron Ortis, whose motive, they acknowledged, remains unknown and who, they agreed, was highly respected as Director General of the National Intelligence Coordination Unit of the Canadian National Police.
Mr. Ortis will receive credit for the six and a half years he spent in prison awaiting trial and following his conviction in November.
The case marked the first time charges under Canada's Security of Information Act 1985 were brought to trial. The provisions of the law meant that Mr. Ortis was “permanently bound to secrecy,” and therefore his testimony was given in secret, with only censored transcripts made public. Other evidence has been kept secret.
Mr. Ortis repeatedly stated his innocence and testified that his actions were part of a top-secret, international mission he embarked on while on leave in 2015 – to study French – and that the mission had been offered to him by someone. at 'a foreign agency'.
He testified that binding promises he made when taking over the operation prevented him from naming that person, identifying where he or she worked or telling the court what threat to Canada had prompted him to take on the job to take.
His agreement with the person, Mr. Ortis said, even prevented him from telling anyone else in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police about the operation, because his foreign counterpart told him there were “moles” in the force who were targeting the project. would sidetrack or otherwise block.
Mr. Ortis, who holds a PhD in cybercrime, was convicted of passing secrets to Victor Ramos, a Canadian who once owned a company that sold specialty cellphones to criminals it claimed were impervious to all forms of surveillance . Mr. Ramos was arrested in Washington state in 2018 and later sentenced to nine years in prison for racketeering and conspiracy.
Prosecutors said the secrets included intelligence from the Five Eyes Network, an intelligence-sharing arrangement between Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
A jury also convicted Mr Ortis of sharing secrets with two men involved in money laundering, trying to give secrets to a fourth man, breach of trust and unauthorized use of a computer.
While the court was presented with an email that Mr. Ortis had sent to Mr. Ramos under a pseudonym, offering to sell more information for 20,000 Canadian dollars (about $14,800), prosecutors said there was no evidence that the former intelligence official had done so. received money or benefited from his operation.
During Wednesday's sentencing hearing, Justice Robert Maranger of the Ontario Superior Court in Ottawa noted the lack of motive in the case, Mr. Ortis' previously exemplary record with police and his refusal to provide key information.
“Cameron Ortis is a bit of an enigma,” the judge said. “The 'why' remains a mystery to me.”