QUEBEC - A former chief investigator with Quebec provincial police says Julie Couillard was never a police informant on criminal biker gangs in the province.
The Globe and Mail reported Saturday that an unnamed source close to former Hells Angels leader Maurice "Mom" Boucher said the biker boss suspected as early as 1996 that Couillard was a paid police informant.
The source said her contact was former anti-biker cop Guy Ouellette.
But Ouellette told The Canadian Press on Saturday he has never met Couillard and was "very surprised" to hear someone say she was a police informant.
Ouellette, now a Liberal in Quebec's national assembly, earned a high-profile reputation during the bloody biker wars of the 1990s, when he had a hand in locking up many of the province's deadliest outlaws.
The newspaper also reported the source as saying that Boucher believed Couillard tried to infiltrate his "inner circle" through her relationships with two men linked to criminal biker gangs.
Couillard had a relationship with former Hells Angels associate Gilles Giguere and was once married for about a year to ex-biker gang member Stephane Sirois.
Sirois testified as a police informant during a biker trial five years ago that Boucher was suspicious of Couillard.
More recently, Couillard dated former foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier. He resigned May 26 after it was revealed he left classified briefing material for a NATO summit for more than a month at Couillard's home near Montreal.
Opposition parties have been demanding an inquiry into the security breach.
The newspaper report on Saturday says Ouellette testified at a bail hearing for Giguere and former police officer Gaetan Rivest, who were arrested along with Couillard during a "police crackdown."
Ouellette was surprised an associate of Boucher, who has been serving a life sentence for the deaths of two prison guards since 2002, would be in a position to contact the former biker boss.
"He doesn't have access to anyone, except his lawyer," Ouellette said of Boucher.
The newspaper report did not specify when the source last contacted Boucher.
The former cop also doubts reports there was a contract out on Couillard's life.
"If there was really a contract, she would not be here," he said.
