B.C. legislature bomb plotters abandon fight for secret spy agency documents

VANCOUVER – Lawyers representing a British Columbia couple who tried to bomb the provincial legislature have abandoned efforts to force Canada's spy agency to hand over secret documents related to a covert investigation into the pair.

Legal counsel for John Nuttall and Amanda Korody say attempts to access the confidential information were moving too slowly through the Federal Court and there was no end in sight.

Nuttall's lawyer Marilyn Sandford says her client directed her to drop the application.

Defence lawyers have wrapped up their case in British Columbia Supreme Court, arguing the Mounties manipulated the couple into plotting to blow up the legislature.

Nuttall and Korody were arrested on July 1, 2013, following an elaborate RCMP sting in which officers posed as Muslim extremists and befriended them.

In court, the Crown was expected to play about four hours of audio and video intercepts from the undercover investigation that weren't seen by the jury during the trial.

Nuttall and Korody, his common-law partner, were found guilty last summer of plotting to blow up the legislature. Their convictions are on hold while lawyers argue they were entrapped by the RCMP.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce, who was the trial judge, is hearing those arguments in the case.

Proceedings are expected to last another several days and then the court is expected to adjourn until closing statements, which are slated for later this year.