Defence lawyers made powerful allegations in BC Supreme Court Friday that former government aides David Basi and Bob Virk may not have leaked confidential BC Rail documents. Their claims were based on Freedom of Information request results from the office of Premier Gordon Campbell.

Basi and Virk face breach of trust and fraud charges for allegedly passing confidential government information to lobbyists representing one of the bidders in the $1 billion privatization of BC Rail.

But on Friday Virk's lawyer Kevin McCullough made the startling claim in pre-trial hearings that the bidding for BC Rail may have been window dressing. In November 2003 the sale was down to just two bidders -- eventual winner CN Rail and OmniTRAX, after CP Rail withdrew and complained to government that the bidding was unfair.

"Was the process effectively a sham?" McCullough asked. "Was OmniTRAX being kept in the bidding process artificially? All those issues are highly relevant to the defence."

McCullough then dropped yet another major bombshell, alleging that the very basis for charges against Basi and Virk -- that they leaked secret government bidding documents to Erik Bornmann and Brian Kieran, the lobbyists for BC Rail bidder OmniTRAX, in exchange for money and favours -- may be unfounded.

Referring specifically to documents the defence obtained through FOI requests to the premier's office, McCullough made this allegation:

“There was leaking that was un-attributable to Basi and Virk. Did Basi and Virk even leak documents to the lobbyists? That’s a live issue,” McCullough charged.

“The FOI documents show other individuals were doing that,” he continued, without naming anyone in the premier's office.

Later in the hearing, McCullough warned Bennett that the defence might need considerable court time to argue release of the FOI materials -- which provincial government lawyer George Coply said may be opposed on the basis of "cabinet confidence," "solicitor client privilege," "third party financial information," and/or "unreasonable invasion of personal privacy" -- all relevant sections of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

McCullough said it may take two weeks of court time in February to adjudicate the issues.

"I wouldn't want you to think that this is a short fight -- because the information we've got -- it's good stuff," McCullough told Bennett.

"In the third party information, in some cases we'll be bringing subpoenas," he said, presumably to force third party witnesses to testify as to why information should not be released to the defence.

McCullough told Bennett that the defence had received "two bankers boxes" full of documents obtained through FOIs and that there were about 139 government documents that may be disputed, plus an additional 480 BC Rail documents.

As usual in the pre-trial hearings, none of the material referred to in court is produced for the media or public to examine -- and as always, it is to be remembered that these are merely allegations and remain unproven.

Bennett will determine which documents obtained by FOI she feels are relevant or may be relevant to the defence and inform Copley, who will then consult the government on whether to oppose their release or not.

Once again, a complex and at times bewildering amount of information was presented in a less than two hour hearing -- and a hearing at which I was the only media representative present, along with one veteran observer.

Bennett is to rule on Monday on previously heard arguments on "litigation privilege" that affects up to 300 documents.

Bill Tieleman writes a column for 24 Hours. This is a shorter version of a post that appeared on his blog.