Pubdate: Fri, 04 May 2012
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Betsy Powell
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)

WITNESS AT COP'S TRIAL DESCRIBES KIDNAPPING, TORTURE THAT WENT UNINVESTIGATED

A Toronto man testified Friday that he was abducted at gunpoint from 
an east-end parking lot and tortured for hours by captors who 
threatened to kill him if he didn't come up with ransom money.

Simion Ternar, 31, told an Ontario Superior Court jury he was leaving 
his gym on Eglinton Ave. E. near Victoria Park when he was approached 
by a man asking for directions.

"That's when he jumped me," he testified through a Romanian interpreter.

The assailant and another man armed with a gun grabbed and pushed him 
into a blue minivan, where they wrapped tape around his head - so he 
couldn't see - and used something "metal" to bind his wrists 
together, Ternar said. He was pushed to the floor and taken to an 
unknown destination.

Ternar said the kidnappers ordered him to shut up and told him, 
"Don't be smart." They spoke in English but he detected Russian accents.

It was 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 16, 2005, he said. "I'll never forget that date."

Ternar was testifying at the trial of Toronto Police Const. 
Ioan-Florin "John" Floria.

Floria has pleaded not guilty to two counts of breach of trust, two 
counts of obstruction of justice, accessory after the fact to 
kidnapping, and money laundering.

The Crown alleges that after Ternar was released, he approached 
Floria, who is also Romanian. The two had socialized together.

The prosecution alleges Floria told Ternar not to report the incident 
to police, and that he would undertake the investigation himself. But 
that was a ruse, the Crown alleges, because Floria was protecting a 
friend whom he suspected was behind the kidnapping. About a year 
later, Ternar contacted Toronto police internal affairs.

Ternar said that after the men parked the van, he was taped to a 
chair and repeatedly punched, pistol-whipped and burned with a 
cigarette. The kidnappers also used pliers on his knuckles, whacked 
him with a baseball bat, suffocated him with a plastic bag until he 
nearly fainted and threatened to cut his feet off with tile cutters.

He told the men he had bags of marijuana at his apartment. At the 
time of his ordeal, Ternar was earning money watering pot plants in 
an apartment on Thorncliffe Park Dr.

The trial continues Monday.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom