Sunday, December 14, 2008

 

The only journalist in the courtroom for some significant Basi Virk developments

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Sunday, December 14, 2008

Defence alleges documents obtained through FOI of Premier Gordon Campbell's office show Basi & Virk may not have leaked BC Rail info


By Bill Tieleman


Defence lawyers made powerful allegations in BC Supreme Court Thursday that former government aides David Basi and Bob Virk may not have leaked confidential BC Rail documents - based on Freedom of Information request results from the office of Premier Gordon Campbell.

Basi and Virk face breach of trust and fraud charges for allegedly passing confidential government information to lobbyists representing one of the bidders in the $1 billion privatization of BC Rail.

But on Thursday Virk's lawyer Kevin McCullough made the startling claim in pre-trial hearings regarding disclosure of evidence to the defence.

"The premier’s office documents – you see the degree of media monitoring going on," McCullough told Justice Elizabeth Bennett in discussing the results of FOI requests made by the defence for documents it has been so far unable to obtain ...

Click on the hyperlink above to see the full story at Bill Tieleman's blog. - BC Mary.

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# posted by BC Mary @ 3:12 p.m.
Comments:
Interesting safari the defence is on...but not a thing NEW in this however. A quick look back through the archives here at Mary's will confirm that the defence has been saying this from the very beginning.

If formed a big part of their first "Application for Discovery" - which was thoroughly analyzed here; in fact, Vaughn Palmer wrote a very interesting piece about the whole BC Liberal "stake" in keeping the phony 'bidding' process on track way back in November of 2006.

The relevant excerpts are here in Mary's archive - for those who care to look!
# posted by Blogger G West : December 14, 2008 at 4:20 p.m.
 
One problem with this article is that this definitely did not happen on Thursday. The Thursday 9am-1pm session was dedicated to Bains, Scallion, Doyle and the vetting of the drug investigation material, and neither Bill Tieleman nor any other journalist was in attendance for this. It must have been Friday when the FOI material was discussed.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : December 14, 2008 at 6:45 p.m.
 
Why not ask Bill. He might well have mistyped the date.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : December 14, 2008 at 9:10 p.m.
 
My apologies - and thanks to Anonymous - in my haste to write up my report from FRIDAY I inadvertently wrote that it took place Thursday - which is incorrect. I've corrected that reference on my blog and happy to let people know here, with my apologies.
# posted by Blogger Bill Tieleman : December 14, 2008 at 10:21 p.m.
 
Thanks, Bill, for the clarification.....

After all, it's not like citizens who wish to keep themselves informed on this matter could have turned to other press accounts to determine the hearing's correct date*.


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*or, of course, to determine if the hearing even took place or not.....

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# posted by Blogger RossK : December 15, 2008 at 2:19 p.m.
 
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