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OSHAWA, Ont. — When they convicted small-time weed dealer Keenan Corner of having murdered Shabir Niazi, an Ontario jury did more than send a young man to prison for shooting his friend.

Without knowing it, on Wednesday the jurors also lifted a veil on a secret decision made in September by the Supreme Court of Canada, a major ruling that allows courts to identify informers who offer tips intended to mislead police and obstruct justice.

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Over the objections of the defence, Canada’s top court decided jurors in Oshawa could hear the Crown’s evidence that, after shooting Niazi, Corner called in a false anonymous tip to Durham Regional Crime Stoppers, an attempt to deflect police suspicion away from him and onto a group of dark-skinned men whom he made up.

By allowing an anonymous tipster to be identified in open court, however, the Supreme Court may also have irreparably broken the public trust in Crime Stoppers, a charity that assists police forces across the country and promises to protect its callers’ anonymity.