Crown fast-tracks ex-deputy premier Nathalie Normandeau's trial

Quebec's former deputy premier will stand trial earlier than expected, now that the Crown prosecutor has chosen to fast-track the case involving her and six co-accused.

Nathalie Normandeau was arrested last year, along with a former Quebec Liberal minister, Marc-Yvan Ct, Normandeau'sformer chief of staff, Bruno Lortie, two former Parti Qubcois staffers and several figures associated with the engineering firm Roche, now known as Norda Stelo.

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ProsecutorClaude Dussaultinformed a Quebec courtroom Monday that the Crown will proceed by direct indictment, which allows the case to go directly to trial.

Dussault withdrew charges ofconspiracy, corruption, breach of trust and briberyand introduced a new set of slightly amended charges against Normandeauand her co-accused, allowing him to make use of thefaster process.

No preliminary inquiry

A preliminary inquiry, a hearingat which the courtdetermines whether there is sufficient evidence for a trial to proceed, had been scheduled to begin June 5.

It had been estimated to take five weeks.

Normandeau's defence lawyer, Maxime Roy, had intended at that stageto argue that there was insufficient evidence for the case to go to trial.

"We consider ourselves unsatisfied with the answers, or absence of answers, that has been provided today," Roy said of the Crown's decision to proceed directly to trial.

The court is expected to set a trial date next September.

• A closer look at the Quebec political figures arrested by UPAC