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Man Sues RCMP, Alleging Entrapment on Thai Drug Charges
Pubdate: Sat, 24 Apr 2004
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Page: A7
Copyright: 2004, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact: http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Tu Thanh Ha
MAN SUES RCMP, ALLEGING ENTRAPMENT ON THAI DRUG CHARGES
MONTREAL -- A Montreal man who spent eight years in a Bangkok jail says
RCMP officers wrongly told Thai police and courts that he was a major drug
trafficker with a criminal record.
Alain Olivier, found guilty in Thailand on drug charges, says in a lawsuit
that he was the victim of an unfair entrapment operation by the RCMP.
Now back in Montreal on parole, he wants the RCMP and Ottawa to pay him
$47-million in damages.
The allegations are outlined in an amended statement of claim filed in
Quebec Superior Court, the latest claims in a lengthy legal battle between
Mr. Olivier, 44, and the RCMP.
David Lucas, a lawyer for the federal government, said Mr. Olivier's claim
is not based on reliable documents.
Furthermore, Mr. Lucas said in an interview, Mr. Olivier's conviction, and
the fact that RCMP undercover agents targeted him, did not stem solely from
a mix-up over whether he had a criminal record.
The case revolves around Operation Deception, an RCMP undercover project
that led to Mr. Olivier's incarceration in Thailand.
RCMP Corporal Derek Flanagan died in a scuffle during a botched drug
purchase in Chiang Mai. Mr. Olivier, who had arranged the transaction, was
arrested and handed over to Thai police in 1989.
According to Mr. Olivier's latest statement of claim, RCMP Staff Sergeant
Barry Bennett told Thai police in a Feb. 22, 1989, sworn statement that Mr.
Olivier was "a major drug dealer." The statement is part of the court filing.
In another sworn statement filed with the statement of claim, Staff Sgt.
Jack Dop states that "Mr. Alain Olivier is a known narcotic dealer, in
cocaine and heroin."
However, according to court documents, Mr. Olivier had no criminal record
until his conviction on drug charges in Thailand in 1990.
By Sept. 6, 1989, Ken Kelly, the RCMP liaison officer at the embassy in
Bangkok, had received a Telex from Ottawa headquarters, advising that a
search for Mr. Olivier's criminal records "proved negative."
The statement of claim says that nevertheless, when Staff Sgt. Dop
testified a month and a half later at Mr. Olivier's trial, on Nov. 14,
1989, Thai court documents show that he still told the court the accused
had a criminal record in Canada.
"The first accused has a criminal record in Canada. I have not taken the
said report with me today," the document translated from Thai says,
according to the latest court filings from Mr. Olivier's lawyers.
Mr. Lucas said the documents aren't reliable because they are not official
transcripts; they are summaries that were translated twice, from English to
Thai, then back to English.
Besides, Mr. Lucas added, "you're not convicted on the basis of a prior
criminal record."
In his statement of claim, Mr. Olivier says he was a small-time junkie
living in small-town British Columbia who agreed to go to Thailand to buy
heroin because he was afraid of what he thought were underworld figures.
In fact, they were undercover RCMP officers looking for traffickers in the
Lower Mainland.
Mr. Lucas said Mr. Olivier wasn't a mere drug addict and the RCMP was right
to target him because of "his willingness to do business."
In the statement of claim, Mr. Olivier says that during the first three
years of his incarceration in Bangkok, he was kept shackled in rusty chains
24 hours a day, "living like an animal."
He had to sleep on the cement floor of a cell shared with up to 100 inmates.
"Sanitary conditions were non-existent and [Mr. Olivier] was continuously
ill from various ailments such as diarrhea, fever, ear infections, severe
teeth-aches, exposure to sick prisoners with AIDS and tuberculosis, skin
infections," the new statement of claim says.
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