HALIFAX - A Nova Scotia judge will decide Friday whether to grant bail to a navy intelligence officer accused in a rare case of espionage.

Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle appeared in Halifax provincial court Wednesday, charged with communicating information that could harm national interests.

He has been in custody at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility since his arrest in January.

Mike Taylor, Delisle's lawyer, said outside court that his client poses no threat to public safety and should be released on bail.

"There's good reason to believe he's not going to be a flight risk, he's not a danger to commit further offences and there's simply not a danger ... that information's going to be passed," he said.

"I believe he should be granted bail under the circumstances."

Delisle shielded his face under a blue hooded sweatshirt as he passed by a string of TV cameras and entered court. Throughout the day, he sat between three sheriffs and appeared attentive to the proceedings. At one point during testimony, he broke down and could be seen wiping away tears.

Judge Barbara Beach granted the defence's request earlier in the day for a sweeping publication ban covering evidence presented at Delisle's bail hearing.

The prosecutor did not comment after the hearing.

Delisle was charged under a section of the Security of Information Act that was passed by the House of Commons after the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

The RCMP say the charges against Delisle mark the first time that anyone has been charged under that section of the act.

Taylor said the bail ruling will be unique because there are no precedents since the law has never been tested in an intelligence case like this.

"It's a difficult decision to make simply because there's no precedent to go by," he said outside court. "There's nothing that's taken place previously to decide what considerations are the most important."

Court documents say one of the alleged offences happened between July 6, 2007, and Jan. 13, 2012, while the other offence is alleged to have happened between Jan. 10 and Jan. 13 of this year.

The Halifax man also faces a breach of trust charge under the Criminal Code that is alleged to have happened between July 6, 2007, and Jan. 13, 2012.

All the offences are alleged to have happened in or near Halifax, Ottawa and Kingston, Ont.

Taylor was asked about a report in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that quoted unnamed sources as saying the volume of material allegedly passed by Delisle to foreign interests rivalled the vast quantity of U.S. data lost to WikiLeaks.

He said he hadn't read the report, but said the comparison was "overstated."

Up until 2010, Delisle worked for both the Chief of Defence Intelligence and at the Strategic Joint Staff, which oversees virtually every major aspect of the military's domestic and international plans and operations.

He joined the military as a reservist private in 1996 and was posted to the 3 Intelligence Company in Halifax.

He went on to join the regular forces in 2001, was promoted to sergeant before being accepted at university for two years in Kingston as an officer candidate and eventually landed back in Halifax at the army's Atlantic headquarters.

In August of last year, Delisle was posted to Trinity, a highly secure naval intelligence centre in Halifax.