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Are four cellphones seized in a police raid in Fort McMurray, Alta., connected to an alleged video of Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine?
Documents surrounding the raid were unsealed by a Superior Court of Ontario judge Friday and given to reporters for the first time. But those documents ? a sworn affidavit seeking permission for a search warrant on a Fort McMurray apartment and the list of items seized by RCMP ? shed little light on the controversy.
?It doesn?t add any direct (clarity),? media lawyer Peter Jacobsen said about the video?s whereabouts. ?But as you know, every piece of information is another building block to perhaps getting at the truth of what really happened.?
Jacobsen said the documents don?t make it clear if the video is on any of the cellphones seized.
?We do not know what is on those cellphones and we will not know, if ever, until trial,? he said.
The search centred on Apt. 601, at 21 MacDonald Dr. in Fort McMurray. Officers wanted the warrant to search for information they believed linked Hanad Mohamed, 23, to the murder of Anthony Smith in Toronto. Smith has been linked to the drug controversy surrounding the mayor because of a photo of them together.
Smith, 21, was shot and killed after leaving a downtown nightclub at 2:40 a.m on March 28 and his 19-year-old friend was wounded. The documents reveal Toronto Police used Mohamed?s phone records to track his cell and place him close to the shooting scene.
A nationwide arrest warrant was issued for Mohamed and he was located by police at his sister?s apartment on May 24, the same apartment searched four days later. At the time of his arrest, Mohamed did not have his cellphone.
The released records show that RCMP officers were looking for one black iPhone, which they found during the raid, along with three other phones that they seized. They also found a micro SD memory card, some cellphone cases and just over a gram and a half of marijuana.
?All of this will be of some assistance presumably to the Crown in its prosecution,? Jacobsen said.
The documents were released in a redacted form to protect Mohamed?s right to a fair trial and confidential sources. Lawyers spent hours Friday going line-by-line through the documents, blacking out information deemed too sensitive by the judge.
Reporters from a number of media organizations had tried to gain access to the documents but they were sealed by the court. Jacobsen said he was happy the documents were released.
?There is a balance when you?re dealing with freedom of expression when you?re in the courts,? he said. ?Just because something might in some tangential way prejudice a fair trial does not mean the information wouldn?t be forthcoming.?
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