Gap in police rules for investigating reporters
Local officers lack protocol for surveillance, affidavit shows
The Montreal police department has never established a procedure for its officers to follow when an investigation concerns a journalist, an affidavit signed by one of its officers reveals.
And the gap in Montreal police rules exists despite a Supreme Court of Canada judgment in 2010 that upheld the right of journalists to shield their confidential sources’ identities as a matter of paramount public interest.
“The Montreal police department has not established any procedure governing investigations aimed in any way whatsoever at journalists,” reads a paragraph found in one of the last of 19 affidavits that Montreal police used in 2016 to obtain surveillance warrants to, among other things, monitor the phone calls and text messages of La Presse columnist Patrick Lagacé and reporter Vincent Larouche during an internal investigation of Montreal officers who were suspected of fabricating evidence.
“However, the heads of special investigations and certain members of senior management of the SPVM (Service de police de la Ville de Montréal) are aware of our investigation which indirectly involves journalists,” the paragraph, in an affidavit signed on June 3, 2016, continues.
“We reiterate to the authorizing judge that journalists are not covered by the offences in the present file, but the interception of certain of their private communication is useful to the investigation targeting SPVM police officers because of the facts and the offences that are alleged.”
The affidavit was signed by SgtDet. Normand Borduas, an investigator in the Montreal police department’s special investigations unit.
The section of the affidavit ends there, without explaining how the journalists’ private communication is useful to the investigation of the police officers.
And it appears to be the only paragraph in more than 1,000 pages of affidavits that even begins to address the question of why police wanted to spy on journalists.
The police request for the warrant was nevertheless granted by Suzanne Bousquet, a justice of the peace.
The paragraph was repeated word-for-word in a subsequent affidavit, dated July 6.
That warrant, too, was authorized by Bousquet.
A judge in December released redacted versions of the affidavits to a consortium of media, including the Montreal Gazette. A publication ban on reporting the content of the affidavits was in effect until Jan. 4.
POLICE OFFICERS INVESTIGATED
La Presse revealed on Oct. 31 that Montreal police had informed Lagacé days earlier that his iPhone had been monitored for several months since December 2015 to learn the identity of his sources. The newspaper also reported at the time that at least 24 warrants had been granted at the request of the Montreal police force’s special investigations section, which probes crimes within its ranks.
The surveillance warrants were obtained as part of Projet Escouade, which probed allegations that police officers specializing in street gangs and drug trafficking had fabricated evidence. As a result of Projet Escouade, five police officers were arrested in July 2016, and two were charged.
One of the officers arrested in July was Fayçal Djelidi, who faces nine counts, including perjury, attempting to obstruct justice, breach of trust by a public officer and obtaining sexual services for consideration.
Most of the 24 warrants allowing police to monitor Lagacé’s phone were authorized by another justice of the peace, Josée de Carufel. By monitoring Djelidi’s cellphone, Montreal police said they tracked contact between Djelidi and Lagacé.
La Presse management condemned the intrusion and called it an unprecedented attack on the newspaper and on journalism. Journalist groups around the world denounced the spying by police. Municipal and provincial opposition parties in Quebec called for Montreal police chief Philippe Pichet to be fired or suspended.
Pichet had said the spying on Lagacé was an exceptional circumstance and that no rules were violated in obtaining the warrants to track Lagacé.
In a statement later, Pichet said the police force had taken “additional protective measures” in accordance with the instructions of the Supreme Court in case journalists communicate with the police officers who were wiretapped.
The police spy scandal widened in the week following the Lagacé affair, with the Sûreté du Québec admitting it had monitored the phone data of six journalists between 2008 and 2013.
The government of Premier Philippe Couillard shortly thereafter announced a public inquiry into press freedom and police surveillance. Couillard also announced his government will tighten the rules that allow police to obtain warrants to conduct surveillance of reporters.
The affidavits released to the media in December show the police tailed Djelidi, a sergeant-detective investigating street gangs in the southern district of Montreal police territory. The police internal affairs section was tipped off in late 2015 that he was fabricating evidence in his work as a handler of police informants, the affidavits state.
Most of the content of each affidavit details irregularities in the way Djelidi and officers whose names are redacted filled out source handler reports or reports on payments to sources and raise questions about whether an intended payment made its way to a particular informant.
The affidavits also allege that files obtained by some officers from police computers were downloaded on USB sticks, violating police rules. The affidavits also detail Djelidi’s frequent visits and contacts with massage parlours and prostitutes in Montreal. The affidavits detail but don’t explain the relevance of a police arrest after a vehicle was stopped on the road following a tip.
However, most of the affidavits contain a profile of Lagacé and Larouche, along with one of Djelidi.
They also contain copies of four news articles that appeared to perturb the Montreal police because they concerned the force and were based on information that was leaked to the media.
Two of the articles, published in the Journal de Montréal, concerned the December 2015 theft of a knapsack containing sensitive police information on a USB stick from the personal vehicle of police anti-street gang squad commander Patrice Vilceus while he was parked downtown to attend a Christmas party for the police department’s special investigations unit.
The knapsack was eventually retrieved, and an arrest made.
Two other articles, published in La Presse, concerned defective bulletproof vests purchased by the Montreal police and allegations of an internal crisis within Vilceus’ Escouade Éclipse.
The affidavits say Djelidi and Lagacé communicated 85 times.
In the chronology of one series of text messages and phone calls, Djelidi and Lagacé’s contacts are interspersed with contact between Lagacé and Larouche.
The affidavits reveal that Djelidi “is directly involved in the file (concerning) the theft in Patrice Vilceus’s vehicle.” Djelidi, the documents state, interrogated and released the man who was later arrested in the theft.
While parts of the affidavits remain redacted, there’s no indication that Djelidi contacted Larouche or other journalists, although the name of someone being contacted at Télé-Québec is redacted.
Some of the affidavits include a chronology of Djelidi’s contact by text and phone with Lagacé, just before a police operation. The affidavits cast suspicion on Djelidi because he at one point used “evasive measures,” ostensibly to avoid being followed, before contacting Lagacé from a pay phone.
They also contain copies of four news articles that appeared to perturb the Montreal police.