The RCMP played fairly last weekend when they sent a lone female officer to visit Hassan Diab in jail without the presence of the man’s lawyer.
According to University of Ottawa law professor David Paciocco, authorities in Canada can, and often do, interrogate people in custody without representation.
“We don’t have a rule that they have to notify or have in attendance the lawyer,” Mr. Paciocco said. “All that’s required is that the accused is told the first time they are detained that they have a right to counsel.”
René Duval, a lawyer representing Mr. Diab, said the officer who tried to question his client at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre was trying to elicit information from him by being nice.
That, too, is fairly common, Mr. Paciocco said.
“Trying to play on somebody’s conscience or basically trying to make them comfortable enough that they make the mistake of opening up is not considered to be inappropriate, it’s just good police work.”
