Publication ban still in effect during pre-trial proceedings for remaining Coutts 4 defendants

A publication ban is still in effect during pre-trial proceedings for Chris Carbert and Anthony Olienick, the remaining two defendants of the Coutts 4, being held in Lethbridge, AB.

Both Carbert and Olienick are being charged with conspiring to commit murder, specifically targeting RCMP officers. They are also charged with weapons and mischief charges.

Chris Lysak and Jerry Morin, the other two men in the group dubbed the Coutts 4, agreed to plea deals to lesser charges in February.

The charges against the Coutts 4 stem from their involvement in the Coutts protest and blockade of 2022, where demonstrators blocked cross-border traffic at the Coutts-Sweetgrass border crossing linking Alberta and Montana.

The Coutts protest took place alongside the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, ON. The two protests were linked in opposition to governmentally-issued decrees, edicts, and mandates marketed as "public health" measures to lessen the spread of COVID-19.

The CBC reported in late 2022 on a legal challenge filed by news organizations to challenge the breadth of the publication ban:

Details are revealed in search warrant applications, also known as ITOs, which describe the two key investigative tactics — the undercover operation and the wiretaps — used to justify charges, raids and further searches.

Four ITOs were unsealed and filed with Lethbridge Provincial Court on Wednesday after a legal challenge from a group of news organizations, including CBC, Global, CTV, the Globe and Mail, Postmedia and the New York Times.

Although the documents were unsealed, redactions and an interim publication ban prevented many of the details from being reported — most notably, information gleaned from wiretaps, statements made by the four accused to police and inflammatory statements made to undercover officers.

The pre-trial proceedings are addressing the admissibility of evidence the Crown claims to have obtained during its ostensible investigation of the Coutts 4 and the broader Coutts protest.

Pre-trial proceedings for Carbert and Olienick are scheduled to continue throughout the remainder of this and the following week.