There have been threats, illnesses and his every move is watched. Galati and Slansky wonder how long his psyche will hold up. The history of jailhouse deaths of key witnesses leans heavily in favor of Vreeland’s belief that he could be killed at any moment.

His apparent strategy is to not reveal any accurate Top Secret material to either his lawyers or the press, hoping that his silence will provide him with some support from US clandestine services. This a standard approach taken in dozens of similar cases researched by FTW in the past They include the cases – well known in research circles – of William Tyree and Michael Riconosciuto. Tyree has been jailed on a questionable murder conviction since 1979 and Riconosciuto on a variety or drug-related charges since the early 1990s. Both men have been directly connected to CIA and other intelligence operations by official documents.

“We don’t need to know and we don’t want to know the secret details, “says Galati. “They’re not necessary for us to do the job of keeping our client alive and in Canada. He faces a special danger in the US because he has also been an informant against an organized crime family in Michigan where the criminal charges originate. The most he is facing there is two years but we believe he might not live for two days in that system.”