The United States wants to extradite Mr. Su to face trial over accusations he masterminded a plot to steal military trade secrets from several American defence contractors.Edgar Su/Reuters
A British Columbia judge is concerned that assistance from the United States in extraditing an accused Chinese spy has more to do with inadequate RCMP resources than Canada's international obligations.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes said on Tuesday he wouldn't accept that the Mounties don't have the ability to translate the equivalent of more than 300,000 pages of seized information from Canadian permanent resident Su Bin.
The United States wants to extradite Mr. Su to face trial over accusations he masterminded a plot to steal military trade secrets from several American defence contractors.
The Canadian government has asked the court to okay a team of U.S. investigators to help the RCMP extract and translate reams of data found on Mr. Su's seized electronics, written predominately in Chinese characters. That information would then be used by the courts to decide whether to extradite him.
The RCMP's inability to investigate this issue on their own suggests the department has a resource-allocation issue, said Justice Schultes, describing the proposed American assistance as a possible matter of "administrative convenience."
"I presume they either don't want to spend the money or whoever's in charge here can't authorize to spend the money," the judge said. "That's really the elephant in the room for me."
Stacey Repas, a lawyer for the Attorney-General of Canada, told the court Canada has an international obligation to co-operate with its neighbour on issues of national security.
It would take the one Canadian Mountie available working full time more than 35 years to translate the documents, and outside help is the only immediate option to expedite processing the U.S.'s extradition application, he said.
"It is a reasonable and measured way of dealing with information that relates to serious offences that have impact on U.S. national security."
Mr. Su's defence lawyer Greg DelBigio echoed the judge's unease, describing the application as purely a resource issue.
"I say that Canadian law has not yet reached the point where we outsource criminal investigations simply because of inadequate resources," Mr. DelBigio said.
He raised the additional concern that American translators may not comply with Canadian requirements that they not submit any information to the United States before a Canadian court order permitted them to do so.
There would be little recourse available in the event of a breach, he added.
"There would be nothing that a Canadian court could do," Mr. DelBigio said. "You can't bring the information back."
A Los Angeles grand jury indicted Mr. Su last August on five offences, including conspiracy to steal trade secrets, conspiracy to export defence information and unauthorized computer access.
The Canadian government is attempting to revoke Mr. Su's permanent residency status but he is appealing the decision.