A veteran Ottawa journalist says he and his family have received threats since he was accused of being a Russian agent before a House of Commons committee last month, but he refutes the allegations, calling them “ridiculous.” are.
“Right now, there are calls for me to be executed, for me to be tortured, for my family to be deported,” Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese told MPs on the House of Commons Public Safety Committee on Thursday. spoke.
Chris Alexander, a former immigration minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, appeared before the same committee last month and accused Pugliese of being a Russian agent.
“Mr. Alexander’s fabricated claims are not only outlandish, they are also dangerous to his family,” Pugliese told the committee. As a result, he said he needed to strengthen security around his home.
Mr. Alexander claimed that Mr. Pugliese was scouted by Russia for his role as a journalist, and provided documentation of that claim to the committee. He told the committee the documents were “evidence of a serious effort to undermine Canada’s national security and collective self-defence.”
A copy of the document obtained by CBC News is listed on the cover as being from the archives of the National Security Committee in Kiev, Ukraine, and dates from 1984 to 1990. CBC News has not independently verified the authenticity of the documents. .
Translated versions of the document give him the name Pugliese, but mostly refer to him as “Stuart”. They say the KGB saw him as a potential resource and sought out one of its agents, “Ivan,” to establish a relationship with him. The documents do not indicate whether such efforts led to the hiring of “Stuart” as an agent.
Pugliese said the documents were full of “factual errors and falsehoods” about his personal life.
Documents suggest Mr. Pugliese lived in Ottawa in 1984 and was a student activist. He told MPs that both of these claims were false. He said he worked for a U.S. military publication in the 1980s that covered topics that would not cast the Soviet Union in a positive light.
“We were writing stories about how to nuke the Soviet Union off the planet, how to get more weapons, the need to expand NATO, things like that,” he said.
Pugliese said he doesn’t know why Alexander made the accusation in the first place.
“We don’t know what was going on in Mr. Alexander’s brain,” he says. He pointed out that he had reported on Alexander when he was a cabinet minister.
Pugliese said he has been the subject of similar accusations in the past, including one alleging he was a CIA employee and Taliban sympathizer.
“Fast forward to 2024 and I’m a Russian spy, living this exciting life,” he quipped.
Pugliese said Alexander’s claims would have been considered defamatory had they not been made before a parliamentary committee. Testimony before the committee is protected by parliamentary privilege.
Alexander told the Canadian Press last month that he stands by what he said before the committee. CBC News reached out to Alexander for further comment Thursday.
In his opening statement, Pugliese said he was upset by the fact that no member of Congress refuted Alexander’s claims. Many MPs subsequently said they were shocked by the accusations against Pugliese and claimed there had not been enough time to consider the documents submitted by Alexander.
Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, also joined Pugliese at Thursday’s committee meeting. Expressing support for the reporter, he said Mr Alexander’s comments were “stunning and dangerous”.
“Mr. Pugliese has been needlessly defamed and this is nothing short of a journalistic crime,” Joly told the committee.
