Unprotected

Meet Noel Harder. Testifying against the Hells Angels led to a $2M bounty on his head. Then he got kicked out of the Witness Protection Program. Noel Harder risked his life as a secret police agent, then spent three years testifying as the star witness against drug dealers, gun runners, mobsters and the Hells Angels.

Today he’s a marked man with an apparent $2-million bounty on his head. And he’s on his own.
The RCMP kicked Harder out of the federal Witness Protection Program last month and, by his account, reneged on one promise after another.

These aren't just the words of a man labelled a "rat" and "snitch" after his double life was exposed; Harder served as the inside man on Project Forseti (link is external), the largest organized crime investigation in Saskatchewan history.

His allegations appear to be supported in a series of texts he received from a high-ranking Saskatoon police officer and a top federal Justice Department official.
"I'd never ever try to talk someone into going the agent route. It's a joke," the officer told Harder in a recent text obtained by CBC News.

Harder is not going quietly. He agreed to an interview with CBC News at a secret location. Those who want him dead already know what he looks like, he said, and they may even know where he is.
"There's a good chance that I'm gonna be killed. I'm just trying to get things sorted out for my family before that happens," Harder said.
"Somebody needs to listen to this, to look into this so police don’t do this to other people."

Both the RCMP and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale declined interview requests, saying they don't comment on witness protection cases.

Goodale did, however, send a letter to Harder through his lawyer in Regina on May 7, warning that disclosure of "certain witness protection information" in open court could lead to five years in prison.


Canada - BN.