Cameron Ortis: What to know about the national security trial

Image source, Reuters

The trial for a civilian member of Canada’s national police force accused of leaking top-secret intelligence began on Tuesday with jury selection.

Cameron Ortis was arrested four years ago in a case that shook the international intelligence community.

Mr Ortis, who had access in his role to highly sensitive domestic and foreign intelligence, has been charged with a number of offences under the country’s national security laws.

It has the potential to be a precedent-setting trial, and experts say the outcome may determine how Canada prosecutes espionage cases in the future.

He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to the six charges he is facing, according to Canadian media reports

Mr Ortis, 51, began working with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2007 as a civilian member of the force, and in that time held positions in national security criminal investigations and in operations research.

At the time of his arrest, he was the director general of the law enforcement agency’s National Intelligence Coordination Centre, and held a high-level security clearance.

Wesley Wark, a leading expert on Canadian national security, describes the unit within RCMP where Mr Ortis worked as “a fusion centre and a clearing house” for both internal intelligence and for sensitive information received from other Canadian and foreign intelligence agencies and allies.

Mr Ortis has expertise in cyber security and East Asia, and studied political science and international relations at the University of British Columbia in western Canada.

The case dates back to 2018, when the RCMP was assisting the FBI on a separate investigation, during which investigators came across documents that suggested there might be some internal corruption – “a mole”.

That sparked a separate investigation to discover the source of the leak and to the arrest of Mr Ortis.

As soon as it learned there was cause for concern, the force took immediate steps to safeguard intelligence, the RCMP said.

Few details of the joint inquiry have been made public but media reports have linked it into an investigation into the Vancouver-based company Phantom Secure, whose CEO has pleaded guilty to facilitating international narcotics traffic by supplying drug cartels with encrypted communications devices.

It also remains unclear what the sensitive information he allegedly accessed was. The RCMP has a wide range of national security-related responsibilities, including investigations into terrorist and criminal activity.

Mr Ortis is accused of breaching the Security of Information Act and the Criminal Code.

The six charges filed against him include the “unauthorised communication of special operational information”, possessing a device or software “useful for concealing the content of information or for surreptitiously communicating, obtaining or retaining information”, and breach of trust by a public officer.

Image source, Reuters

The offence allegedly took place between 2015 and 2019 during his tenure as an RCMP employee.

None of the allegations against Mr Ortis have been tested in court. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in jail.

Following his arrest, Mr Ortis was detained for three years. He was released on December 2022 after posting bail for C$250,000 ($181,000; £151,000).

Since then, Mr Ortis’ lawyer Mark Ertel said his client has been under surveillance.

Ahead of Tuesday’s trial, his lawyers have hinted that they will argue he “did have the authority to do everything he did”.

Canada is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that also includes the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

It appears that Mr Ortis’s work dealt with elements of both cyber security and organised crime, Mr Wark told the BBC at the time of his arrest, but he noted that being employed in “a kind of intelligence hub” for the RCMP means he could have had access to databases and information beyond his immediate role.

Mr Ortis will be tried by a jury and the trial is expected to last several weeks in Ottawa.

Parts of the trial may be held in secret, away from media and the public, as some evidence will involve national security information.