Pubdate: Sat, 31 Mar 2007 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Copyright: 2007 The Ottawa Citizen Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326 Author: Gary Dimmock, Ottawa Citizen CITIZEN INVESTIGATED OVER WITNESS STORY RCMP Sent Officers To B.C. To Question Lawyer About Interview The RCMP launched its own investigation weeks after the Citizen began probing the life of a protected RCMP agent who duped the force, received hundreds of thousands of dollars and then went on to kill someone. The Citizen has learned the Mounties sent two Ottawa detectives to question a Victoria lawyer about his interview with a Citizen reporter. They wanted to know what information was shared concerning RCMP agent E8060. This newspaper was investigating the case of paid agent Richard Young, an out-of-work liar who, according to a judge, had led the Mounties on a charade. The Mounties were after a reputed B.C. heroin dealer and, despite warnings from members of their own force about Mr. Young, the RCMP signed him up under the Witness Protection Program and paid him for what turned out to be fabricated evidence against their target. The story about the RCMP informant was first published in the Citizen on Mar. 23. Since then, a House of Commons committee on public safety and national security voted unanimously to investigate the case. Weeks after the Citizen began researching the agent's past, the Mounties came calling. Tom Bulmer recalled yesterday a visit from the RCMP. Mr. Bulmer represented Brian Liu, an alleged Asian drug dealer in Victoria and a prized target of the RCMP. "The (Mounties) were basically after the (Citizen), the lawyer said yesterday. "They were after somebody. "They wanted to know who knew, and who was talking about it in order to investigate that. They asked about the Ottawa Citizen, but I told them I can't answer any questions about that." The lawyer said he would rather the force examine what went wrong with their own organization, rather than spend their time trying to figure out how the Citizen made it public. Once under the RCMP's witness protection program, Mr. Young became a liaison between Mr. Liu and Mr. Bulmer. At one point, Mr. Young was taking Mr. Liu's files home for review. "I had a live bug (Richard Young) in my office," Mr. Bulmer said. Only later did Mr. Bulmer discover that the RCMP had planted an agent in his office, and he called it a severe breach of solicitor-client privilege. The reputed drug dealer's case was later thrown out. "The only police so far who have contacted me have contacted me for one purpose: to either keep the information secret, make sure I don't talk or try and find out somebody to charge. "Nobody from the RCMP has ever said 'oh we may have caused a problem in your office, I'm sorry. The judge found that. We'd like to know more. How we'd like to make the system better. How can we make sure this doesn't happen again?' "Nothing like that. No apology, nothing. "It had nothing to do with what went wrong in their own system and it had nothing to do with what the RCMP did in my office. They were not here with anything to do with that, it was all about who may be breaking the Witness Protection Act section that says you can't divulge who a participant is." The RCMP said yesterday it was unable to respond to any questions about this story, and that they wouldn't generally comment on an ongoing investigation. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek