Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jul 15/98) - Even justice has a deadline, and for the Wing Lee trial that deadline is Friday.

The trial, originally scheduled to be completed in a week, was slowed by a number of critical side issues that arose.

The first three days were spent dealing with defence arguments that videotaped evidence was obtained illegally.

Soon after Justice John Vertes ruled the tapes could be used as evidence, CBC took issue with another ruling that the public be removed from the courtroom while the tapes were played.

An agreement between lawyers from both sides and the CBC lawyer resulted in the issue being resolved the Friday morning.

On Monday, court adjourned early because four prosecution witnesses did not appear to testify.

At the request of the Crown prosecutor Mark Scrivens, Vertes issued arrest warrants for the four young women, at the same time emphasizing time is of the essence.

"Please advise the authorities I expect that the witnesses will be here tomorrow morning to testify," Vertes instructed. "If there's going to be action on this, it has to come quickly."

Two of the four girls testified Tuesday morning.

Vertes is scheduled to hear a dangerous-offender application in Fort Simpson starting Monday. Two weeks have been reserved for the application.

An official at with the Supreme Court said that if the trial is not finished this week, it is difficult to say how long it would be before it resumed. "It could be a couple of weeks, it could be a couple of months," the official said.