A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has been arrested and charged with accessing police information and passing info to the Rwandan govt.
The federal police power claimed on Tuesday that its built-in national security enforcement crew (Inset) experienced arrested Constable Eli Ndatuje, who was stationed in Alberta.
Ndatuje has been billed with breach of believe in, unauthorized use of a laptop, and breach of have confidence in with regard to safeguarded information and facts, an alleged violation of the country’s Protection of Details Act.
He is owing to surface in a Calgary court docket on 11 March. He has been released but has been purchased to surrender his passport, remain inside the province and report for fingerprinting.
According to courtroom documents, Ndatuje stands accused of passing “safeguarded information and facts on the Canadian Law enforcement Data Centre (CPIC) technique to a international entity, to wit the Republic of Rwanda.”
Ndatuje was born in Uganda but is of Rwandan descent. He moved to Canada when he was 14 yrs previous.
The RCMP reported soon after it uncovered of the alleged security breach, it put in spot steps to observe and prevent even more unauthorized disclosures of facts.
“The RCMP is committed to combating overseas actor interference at all levels and is actively leveraging all equipment at its disposal,” it said in the news launch. “Foreign interference can take on quite a few forms and it is vital that all organizations are mindful of the probable hurt at any concentrations.”
Ndatuje is the third member of the RCMP to have been a short while ago charged less than the Protection of Information Act. Final 7 days, a former best Canadian law enforcement intelligence formal, Cameron Ortis, was sentenced to 14 decades in jail for leaking key data.
About the summer season, law enforcement also charged the retired RCMP employee William Majcher with two counts below the Safety of Information Act, alleging he “used his information and his in depth community of contacts in Canada to acquire intelligence or solutions to profit the People’s Republic of China”. He has been granted bail and has not formally entered a plea.
Canada is in the midst of a reckoning about the scope and influence of international nations in its governing administration establishments. In excess of the previous calendar year, leaked intelligence stories advise China has attempted to “meddle” with Canada’s elections.
In September, the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, mentioned there were “credible allegations” linking India to the assassination of a political activist in Canada.
An impartial fee is investigating alleged overseas interference in Canadian affairs.