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.