Alleged spy fed false info in sting to hurt credibility

Deception seems to have worked: expert

OTTAWA — Authorities fed an alleged Canadian naval spy fabricated information as part of a classic “sour milk” counterintelligence ploy to taint the credibility of secrets the man is suspected of passing to Russia, Postmedia has learned.

“This was done by the book — sour the milk so that you confuse the other side,” Michel Juneau- Katsuya, a former spy service counter- intelligence officer with sources close to the Halifax case, revealed in an interview Friday.

Once naval officials suspected there was a spy in their midst, deliberately flawed information was baited and designed to eventually be discovered by its foreign recipients, casting doubt on the usefulness of any other classified data related to the case.

Juneau- Katsuya said the deception is believed to have worked, and now “they don’t know what is true and what is not [ and] will have to be suspicious of pretty much everything [ given to] them.”

While military and RCMP investigators are still gathering details, Juneau- Katsuya said he believes Russia may have been after North Atlantic Treaty Organization [ NATO] secrets.

“When you talk about Halifax, you talk about the Atlantic and the Arctic. And when you talk about the Atlantic and Arctic, you talk NATO. And when you talk NATO, you talk Russia,” he said.

His comments are the latest twist in an unfolding spy caper that surfaced last weekend with the arrest in Halifax of Royal Canadian Navy Sub- Lt. Jeffrey Delisle on charges of spying over a five- year period. Military and government officials are saying little about the case.

Suspicions that Russia was behind the alleged spy operation intensified Friday with news of a possible staff shakeup at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. Two Russian Embassy diplomats and two administrative and technical staff members were dropped from the Department of Foreign Affairs’ list of foreign representatives officially recognized by Canada.

Russian Embassy officials insist the two envoys linked by media reports to Delisle — Lt.Col. Dmitry Fedorchatenko and attache Konstantin Kolpakov — were at the end of their terms and were scheduled to leave weeks before the charges were laid.

The Conservative government has refused to comment.

Juneau- Katsuya says the government strategy is to minimize the case.

“They hope, by not openly accusing the Russians, the Russians will not do a tit- for- tat and send four [ Canadian] diplomats back home. They want to play nice, hoping that the Russians will play nice.

“And so far, they are. They’re saying, ‘ No, no, these guys were due for rotation and due to go.’ In reality, no.”

If the case goes to trial, it will be Canada’s first spy prosecution in almost 20 years.