UPDATED 2:57 p.m. Wednesday

There's been yet another adjournment in the case of a Canadian naval intelligence officer accused of spying for Russia.

Lawyer Mike Taylor told a Halifax provincial court judge Wednesday that he needs more time to review the evidence against Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle.

Taylor said he has yet to examine new disclosure received from the Crown last Friday relating to a search warrant.

Judge Barbara Beach adjourned the case until July 17, when Taylor hopes to be in a position to announce whether Delisle wishes to be tried in provincial court or in Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

Delisle, 41, faces two counts of violating the Security of Information Act and one Criminal Code count of breach of trust by a public officer.

The Bedford man was arrested in January and is in custody at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Dartmouth. He was denied bail in March.

“He's in a holding pattern,” Taylor said of his client Wednesday.

“Like I said before, he's patient. He knows it takes a long time to get to the point where we can make an actual decision and he wants to make sure it's done right.”

Taylor told reporters there haven't been any surprises in the hundreds of documents that have been turned over by the Crown.

“It's pretty much what I expected to see,” he said.

“We've been having ongoing discussions and the Crown has been quite co-operative, as far as I can tell, at this point.”

Some of the material was blacked out for security reasons, “but every once in a while, I get something that's a little less redacted than the original version,” Taylor said.

RCMP allege Delisle provided classified information to Russian agents between July 2007 and January of this year. The offences were allegedly committed in Halifax, Bedford, Ottawa, and Kingston, Ont.

Delisle became a military reservist in 1996 and joined the regular forces in 2001. He was working at Trinity, a highly secure naval intelligence centre in Halifax, at the time of his arrest.

He’s also worked for the Chief of Defence Intelligence and at the Strategic Joint Staff, which oversees major aspects of the military's domestic and international plans and operations.

Delisle is 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. It’s the first time that anyone has been charged under that part of the act.

The security act charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, while breach of trust is punishable by up to five years behind bars.

(sbruce@herald.ca)