Gang informant wants case in open court
Noel Harder, who is suing the Crown and RCMP for allegedly failing to keep him safe after he turned on his gangland associates, is now trying to stop the Canadian government from hiding his lawsuit from public view.
Once a high-ranking member of the Fallen Saints Motorcycle Club, Harder was the star witness in Project Forseti, a police and RCMP operation against the Hells Angels, Fallen Saints and others in Saskatoon that saw more than 200 guns and $8 million in drugs seized in January 2015.
Harder and the Fallen Saints had long run huge amounts of drugs into Saskatoon from Vancouver, using his construction business as their base. He first agreed to cooperate with police after being caught with guns in 2014, and he, his wife and two children began the process of entering the witness protection program when the Forseti raids were made.
Although his double dealing led to the fall of numerous gang operatives, a claim filed at Court of Queen’s Bench in Regina in March says RCMP failings left Harder and his family financially crippled and in acute danger.
Citing legal subsections dealing with “the means and methods by which protected persons are protected,” the government says Harder’s lawsuit should be heard without the press or public present.
The application is set to go before a Queen’s Bench judge in Regina on Thursday.
Harder’s lawyer says authorities want to hide the case because it makes them look bad.
“This attempt to stop the media has nothing to do with the safety of anybody,” said Regina lawyer Tony Merchant, who represents Harder and his family. “It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with my clients because they’re not getting any protection.
“It’s just to stop the public from seeing the evidence of how bad the Witness Protection Program really is. Once you give the government what they want, they have you in their control and they misuse that control. You don’t get the protection you think you’re getting.”
Among a catalogue of allegations, Harder’s 24-page statement of claim says the RCMP, which runs the witness protection program, badly mismanaged businesses, properties and vehicles he left behind in Saskatoon; endangered the family by failing to provide them with name changes on time; used handling methods that gave away their whereabouts; and left Harder unprotected in a Saskatoon hotel room for two days as he took the stand in a Forseti case.
Once he was gone from Saskatoon, the “Crown’s representatives allowed members of the Fallen (Saints) Motorcycle Club to go through (Harder’s) office unsupervised and remove what they wished,” the claim says. In hiding, the claim says the family was frequently threatened that their involvement in the program would be terminated, adding that it felt like a “death sentence.”
None of the allegations has been proven in court.
The claim says the entire family was eventually terminated involuntarily from the program. Merchant says Harder no longer receives any protection. The status of the rest of the family, however, is unclear. A message left for Harder via Merchant’s office was not returned.
The Canadian attorney general’s application says Harder’s claim “contains information that is prohibited from disclosure under the WPPA,” and that in order to defend themselves, authorities “will be required to include information in pleadings, documents and court proceedings which would also be prohibited from disclosure.”
Calls to the department of justice seeking comment on the sealing application were not returned.