VANCOUVER—A key witness in a terrorism trial underway in British Columbia has denied playing a heavy-handed role in encouraging the man accused of building pressure-cooker bombs.
Defence lawyer Marilyn Sandford suggested the undercover police officer directed John Nuttall away from his proposal to assemble handcrafted rockets and toward a quicker, more feasible plan that was “not a fantasy.”
“You knew that he had none of the equipment, the materials or anything to further his rocket plan,” Sandford said April 8.
“I was given the directive to discourage Mr. Nuttall from making homemade explosives and that’s what I did,” replied the officer whose name is covered by a publication ban.
“And to encourage him to actually do something that actually did pose a public safety risk: building a pressure-cooker device,” Sandford said.
“No,” the officer replied.
Nuttall and his wife Amanda Korody have pleaded not guilty to four terrorism-related charges stemming from an alleged plan to attack the provincial legislature on Canada Day two years ago. They were arrested as part of a months-long sting involving more than 240 police officers.
