By Canadian Press

Norman’s lawyers hint at more ‘codenames’ as Sajjan’s chief of staff takes stand

Jan 31, 2019 | 12:37 PM

OTTAWA — Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s lawyer is raising the prospect that government officials used several more undisclosed identifiers to refer to her client in internal communications and hide any paper trial.

Lawyer Marie Henein referenced several potential identifiers while questioning Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s chief of staff this morning about efforts to gather thousands of government documents requested by Norman’s team.

Zita Astravas told Henein that she could not recall whether she’d ever referred to Norman in messages on her personal iPhone or email account as “a certain naval officer,” “a certain naval fellow,” or “a naval colleague.”

Henein did not say just why she was asking about those terms, though Astravas did confirm that she had only searched her work phone and email account and not her own phone and account for records about Norman after being subpoenaed.

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Court has heard contradictory accounts from witnesses during eight days of pre-trial hearings over whether Defence Department officials used codenames to refer to Norman or simply commonplace military acronyms.

Norman was suspended as the military’s second-in-command in January 2017 and charged last March with one count of breach of trust for allegedly leaking government secrets. He denies any wrongdoing.

The Canadian Press