Cameron Jay Ortis, a former RCMP intelligence official charged with breaching Canada's secrets law, arrives for his trial at the courthouse in Ottawa, on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023. The jury in the criminal trial has reached a verdict.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
OTTAWA – A jury has found former RCMP intelligence official Cameron Jay Ortis guilty of breaching Canada’s secrets law.
Jurors declared Ortis guilty of three counts of violating the Security of Information Act and one count of attempting to do so.
They also found him guilty of breach of trust and fraudulent use of a computer.
Ortis, 51, had pleaded not guilty to all charges, including violating the secrets law by revealing classified information to three individuals in 2015 and trying to do so in a fourth instance.
He testified he offered secret material to targets in a bid to get them to use an online encryption service set up by an allied intelligence agency to spy on adversaries.
The Crown argued Ortis lacked authority to disclose classified material and that he was not doing so as part of a sanctioned undercover operation.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 22, 2023.
