THAT some senior RCMP officers in BC were up to dirty tricks yet again did not come as a surprise to this newspaper as we have been exposing the Mounties since the 1990’s.

Only last year, as we all well know, the RCMP were thoroughly discredited when a judge ruled that Doug McCallum was innocent in the false case of public mischief that they had filed against the then-Surrey mayor just because he had introduced municipal policing transition that they so desperately wanted to reverse.

But the crafty, vicious and dishonest Mounties and their supporters in Surrey had already achieved their goal of getting McCallum defeated in the 2022 municipal election (“why would you vote for someone who is going to jail?” was their wicked propaganda against McCallum back then) — although even then, their puppet, Brenda Locke, won by fewer than 1,000 votes!

But let’s look back to the 1990’s when I exposed their dirty tricks — something that you would expect from a Third World country or a banana republic police — in the Air India bombing case.

In 1998, I received a tip-off that the RCMP were ready to lay charges in the sensational 1985 Air India bombing case. Someone leaked me a February 1998 letter from the head of the Air India investigation team at the time – Inspector Gary Bass – to the warden of Matsqui Institution for then-bomb-making suspect Inderjit Singh Reyat’s bail hearing. Reyat was in a position to get bail and the RCMP were desperate to keep him in prison as they were pressuring him to reveal the names of those who had asked him to make the bombs that were placed in the luggage on two Air India flights.

Bass’s letter claimed: “The RCMP court brief (Air India case) will be presented to Vancouver Regional Crown Counsel next month (March 1998) for charge approval. The investigation has taken years to complete due to various extenuating circumstances, however, I assure you that the court brief along with evidence packages are near completion. The Air India Task Force will recommend that Mr. Reyat and the chief accused persons be charged with Conspiracy to Commit Murder (Air India and Narita bombings) along with other crimes.”

The RCMP were highly embarrassed as mainstream media went crazy about my story, demanding an explanation from them.

Needless to say, they had nothing to say!

Then, a year later, in 1999, when Reyat’s review came up again, I did another exclusive story that was picked up again by mainstream media a few days later.

In a letter dated March 4, 1999, Cpl. R.G. Ginn of the Air India Task Force wrote to the warden of Matsqui Institution about Reyat not registering a 357 Magnum revolver that was found at his residence in November, 1985. They said the officer investigating the case “felt that the parole board members should also know that it was determined that the owner was an East Indian from Yuba City, California” and that “in August of 1988, an attempt was made on [Punjabi publisher and journalist] Tara Singh Hayer’s life by an assassin using another revolver also registered to the same person.” The letter added: “In the event that you or the parole board members may not be aware of this information, it is hereby provided to you.”

The letter had the desired result: it kept Reyat in jail. How convenient it was to suddenly come up with this information that the RCMP had all along at just the right moment!

That’s how things are manipulated in non-Western countries – and that should NOT happen in Canada!

In any case, the RCMP ended up bungling up the whole Air India case and Bass ended up blaming one of Reyat’s lawyer for not cooperating with the RCMP! Isn’t a defence lawyer supposed to protect his client – not hand him over to the cops?

(Incidentally, I have never had any sympathy at all for all those involved directly or indirectly in the Air India bombing plot and have been very open about that all along, but I will not support an abuse of process or power by the state.)

KASH HEED

ELEVEN years later —  in 2010-2011 — I once again started exposing the Mounties’ dirty tricks in another case.

In April 2011, writing about the vicious manner in which the RCMP tried to discredit then-solicitor general Kash Heed in then-Premier Gordon Campbell’s government, I wrote: “The RCMP should end its shameless harassment of former solicitor general Kash Heed now that after all their desperate attempts to find something against him have failed miserably as a special prosecutor has exonerated him in an investigation into his 2009 election campaign in the Vancouver-Fraserview riding.”

But the RCMP wouldn’t stop trying every dirty trick in their book to nail Heed and I kept exposing them left, right and centre. One of my articles, in January 2011, was titled: “Are RCMP Out To Get Kash Heed For Wanting To Replace Them With Regional Police Force Or … ?”

The RCMP even tried to cause divisions in the ruling party by leaking out Heed’s personal emails in which he had criticized some of his colleagues! Indeed, the RCMP is always ready to stoop as low as possible to achieve their goals.

Earlier, the RCMP, rattled by my write-ups, got an official spokesperson whom I had known for years to call me up to assure me off the record that the RCMP were not after Heed and that they, in fact, hoped all this would go away. He said my articles were read by the whole South Asian community and so he was reaching out to me.

The spokesperson told me that he in fact had asked one of the investigators if any senior RCMP officer had instructed him to do this or that, and he had replied that if any officer had tried to interfere, he would have told him to get lost. He said that he just wanted to assure me that the Mounties had nothing personal against Heed.

But then Barinder Sall, who was the campaign manager for Heed in the Vancouver-Fraserview riding, confirmed to Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew that the Mounties were out to get Heed.

Sall told Mulgrew: “The police come to you and say, ‘we’d like to talk to you, see what you have … give up your buddy [Heed], [we’re] not interested in you. Give him up.’ I didn’t give anybody up.”

That was something that I had been pointing out time and time again since 2010 when this whole affair started and now Sall had confirmed it!

As I wrote back then: “There is NO WAY that the investigating officers would have told Sall “give up your buddy, [we’re] not interested in you” without instructions from the VERY TOP!

Yes, that’s how the RCMP operates.

VOICE OPINION COLUMN

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