Sting only way to investigate terror couple, lawyer says

VANCOUVER — A controversial undercover police sting was the only way for officers to investigate a couple later found guilty of plotting to commit mass murder during Canada Day festivities in Victoria, a Crown lawyer says.

Peter Eccles told B.C. Supreme Court on Monday that RCMP officers launched a covert investigation into John Nuttall and Amanda Korody in 2013 to keep the public safe.

The Mounties steered Nuttall and Korody toward planting pressure-cooker bombs at the provincial legislature because it was a safer and more manageable scenario than other riskier ideas the pair had floated, such as hijacking a navy submarine and firing rockets at Seattle, he said.

But the operation was not entrapment, Eccles said.

“This was an innovative and effective undercover investigation in which the RCMP provided two suspects the opportunity to execute their jihad, to be the terrorists they wanted to be, while protecting the public by ensuring their plan did not succeed.”

A jury found Nuttall and Korody guilty last summer of terrorism-related offences, but their verdicts were put on hold while lawyers argue whether police manipulated the couple.

The Crown contended that Nuttall was “keen, eager and participating every step of the way” and that he was already on police radar and posed a threat to public safety before the operation began.

Eccles contradicted the defence’s argument that Nuttall was afraid of an undercover officer he believed was a member of the radical Islamic group al-Qaida.

“You don’t call up the devil and complain when he won’t behave,” he said.

“Mr. Nuttall chose who he wanted to do his jihad with. He chose who he wanted to seek his advice from.”

Defence lawyers have said police exploited the couple’s vulnerabilities as isolated former drug addicts living on welfare in a dirty basement suite to draw them into what was portrayed as a shadowy terrorist organization.

Eccles and Justice Catherine Bruce clashed repeatedly Monday, including when the prosecutor argued that the jury had effectively already decided on the matter of entrapment following criminal proceedings, which wrapped up last June.

“What the jury found on the path to conviction must be respected,” Eccles said. He was rebuffed by Bruce. “I hear your argument,” the judge said. “But I suggest you strongly press on your other argument.”

The Crown prosecutor quoted earlier testimony from the principal undercover officer that the sting aimed to move Nuttall away from putting the public at risk and not toward any particular conclusion.

“To say that the police didn’t want to take them to the end result I think is a little bit cheeky considering what they actually did to get them to do what they did,” Bruce said.

“That’s where we 100 per cent disagree,” Eccles said. “[Nuttall and Korody] did what they wanted to do.”