JUDGE UPHOLDS INFORMANTS' ANONYMITY

A Winnipeg judge has upheld the law that the identity of police
informants -- especially those who call Crime Stoppers anonymously --
must be protected at all costs.

The decision means that a suspected cocaine mule cannot have access
to Crime Stoppers documents that she claims may show there was no tip
at all, that police cooked it up so they had reasonable grounds to search her.

Crime Stoppers lawyer Reeh Taylor said the decision is important
because it re-affirms a law that informants' identities must be kept secret.

"Any information that could identify an informant,is in almost every
case sacrosanct," Taylor said.

The question of informant privilege came to a head in the ongoing
drug trafficking trial of Susan Wai-Ling Hanano at the downtown Law
Courts Building. The two-week trial started Monday.

Hanano was charged Nov. 13, 2002 moments after she stepped off a bus
from British Columbia at the Portage Avenue bus depot. Police found
10 kilos of cocaine worth $800,000 after a brief search.

In a pre-trial motion Hanano's lawyer, Sheldon Pinx, claimed the
search was unreasonable because the Crime Stoppers tip leading to his
client's arrest may not be legitimate.

Pinx said Monday he couldn't talk about the case as Hanano's trial is
still going on, but Taylor said Pinx raised the possibility of police
abuse of process based on the timing of the Crime Stoppers tip.

The tip was made at 8:53 a.m. Nov. 13, 2002 by someone claiming to be
a passenger on Greyhound bus No. 1123. The tipster told Crime
Stoppers they overheard a woman on the bus talking on her cellphone
that she was bringing drugs into Winnipeg and that she wanted to be
met at the bus depot.

The bus arrived at the Winnipeg station at 9:20 a.m. that day.
Police, based on the tip, were waiting for Hanano.

Pinx questioned the legitimacy of the tipster's call saying Hanano's
cellphone records showed her last call was made more than six hours
before she arrived in Winnipeg.

Pinx said Hanano could only prove her innocence if the confidential
Crime Stoppers "tip sheet" on the incident was disclosed to her. To
not let her see it would violate Canada's Charter of Rights and
Freedoms and mean the charges against should be stayed, he argued.

The judge hearing the case disagreed.

"The defence theory that the tip was faked is speculation," Madam
Justice Lori Spivak said in her written decision. "The defence offers
no factual foundation for this claim other than the improbability of
a drug courier speaking on a cellphone on a bus and the time gap
between the last call on the accused's cellphone and the call to
Crime Stoppers."