Pubdate: Wed, 04 Feb 2004
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2004 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Jeff Rud

JUDGE REFUSES TO LIFT LID ON DRUG WARRANTS

TC Denied Access To Details Of Raids On B.C. Legislature

DUNCAN -- A provincial court judge refused Tuesday to grant the Times 
Colonist access to two federal drug-investigation warrants linked to 
December's police raids on the B.C. legislature.

But Judge Keith Bracken did reveal that police and the judiciary went to 
extraordinary lengths to keep secret all the warrant information connected 
to the 20-month-long investigation into drugs and money-laundering that 
resulted in a spinoff investigation and legislature search.

Bracken said that beginning in August, authorities determined that 
search-warrant information would be "treated in a different way" in this 
investigation.

That included the sealing of all search warrants, information to obtain 
those warrants, and even the sealing orders themselves.

Bracken said all drug warrants in the investigation, beginning in late 
August or early September, were signed by a judge in Duncan provincial 
court. But that information was subsequently shipped back to Vancouver for 
storage by the chief administrative judge and was not even assigned court 
file numbers.

The documents arrived at the Duncan court in sealed packages and were 
shipped out the same way, Bracken said.

"The warrants were placed in sealed packages, many of the sealing orders 
themselves were sealed and held separate and apart from the usual court 
process to protect the integrity of the investigation," said Victoria 
lawyer Mike Scherr, who represented the Times Colonist and CH Television at 
Tuesday's hearing.

"This speaks to the magnitude of the investigation."

But while Bracken shed some light on the unusual security measures used in 
this case, he refused to unseal two federal drug warrants that are linked 
to the legislature raid but weren't included in earlier media applications 
heard by Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm in B.C. Supreme Court.

The two warrants dealt with Tuesday are for searches on or about Dec. 9 at 
the former home of Mandeep Sandhu, at 4150 Bremerton St. in Saanich, and on 
or about Dec. 28 at a property owned by David Basi, at 3260 Shawnigan Lake Rd.

Sandhu is the cousin of Victoria police officer Ravinder Dosanjh, who was 
suspended Dec. 15 while RCMP and Victoria police conduct an investigation 
into allegations of breach of trust and obstruction of justice.

Basi was the ministerial assistant to B.C. Finance Minister Gary Collins. 
Basi was fired on Dec. 29, the day after police searched his office at the 
legislature and his home in Saanich.

Police discovered and dismantled a marijuana grow operation when they 
searched the property at 3260 Shawnigan Lake Rd. Basi has since said 
through his lawyer Chris Considine that the property was a rental unit and 
he had no knowledge of the grow-op.

While the search warrants for two legislature offices and Basi's Saanich 
residence were among those issued and handled by Dohm, warrants for the 
Bremerton Street and Shawnigan Lake Road properties were issued by Bracken.

Federal prosecutor Johannes Van Iperen, who is handling the drug case, 
confirmed that all these warrants are related.

"The warrants basically all have the root in the same information. There's 
a common starting point," Van Iperen said. "The question is whether there's 
a risk to the other part of the investigation by releasing this information 
here, and that was Mr. Justice Dohm's opinion."

On Jan. 23, Dohm ruled that he would not release edited information from 
the other federal drug warrants, in large part because they are closely 
"intertwined" with the non-drug warrants used for the legislature raid.

Dohm will resume the hearing on that media application on March 2 in 
Vancouver. In the meantime, he has asked Van Iperen and special prosecutor 
Bill Berardino, who is handling the non-drug case, to prepare summaries for 
release to the media by that date.

On Tuesday, Bracken decided to put aside the Shawnigan Lake Road and 
Bremerton Street search warrants until after March 2.

Lawyers for the Times Colonist, CH, CTV and the Globe and Mail had been 
attempting to unseal information pertaining to those two warrants.

But Bracken ruled that to do so "would effectively undermine the order of 
Justice Dohm."

While Van Iperen said the federal Crown has no objection to the information 
in these two warrants being released, he told Bracken that the appropriate 
thing to do would be to adjourn the hearing until after March 2.

Basi was represented in court Tuesday by David Lyon, an associate of 
Considine. Lyon argued that the warrant information should not be released 
because his client has no idea what is included in those warrants and 
because to do so would undermine Dohm's decision.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom