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Writer Fights Zundel Subpoena
From Ingrid Rimland
irimland@mail.bellsouth.net
5-9-4
 
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
 
Almost ten years after it happened, the controversy around the parcel bomb that was sent to the Zundel-Haus in 1995, apparently with the knowledge and approval of CSIS, is squarely on the table and will be aired in future Zundel hearings. For those new to the ZGram list, here is a snapshot of what happened:
 
On the 50th anniversary of the defeat of Germany, a Toronto punk was paid $200 by "unknown" elements to set fire to the Zundel-Haus. His act was caught with a surveillance camera as he poured flammable liquid around the base of the structure and put a match to it. Flames immediately shot up between the walls to the fourth floor and destroyed a priceless library first, causing extensive damage to the rest of the building. Ernst Zundel was away on a lecture trip; otherwise he would have been killed, since his bedroom was also on the fourth floor.
 
Toronto Jews danced the hora on the sidewalk. A few days later, Jewish Defense League hoodlums, among them the notorious Irv Rubin, showed up to photograph the arsoned building. Zundel bodyguards as well as police cruisers chased them and even caught them, but after a brief phone call by Irwin, the JDL members were quickly let go.
 
The damage to the Zundel-Haus was estimated at more than $400,000 dollars. Street gossip soon located the arsonist's name and whereabouts, which were turned over to the police. Police chose not to follow up.
 
A few days later, there was some terror mail sent to the Zundel-Haus - a mouse trap with a razor blade, allegedly laced with AIDS, along with a crudely misspelled letter warning, "Next time it will be BOOM!"
 
These items were turned over to Toronto police who, again, chose not to follow up.
 
As I remember it, a Jewish activist group took credit for this act by sending a letter to media.
Then a parcel arrived in the mail. Ernst received it and noticed immediately that it was suspiciously heavy. His crew and volunteers from all over the world were swarming about the gutted building, trying to rescue what could still be rescued, and starting to repair and rebuild. Some inner voice told Ernst not to open the parcel. He put it to the side and warned his people not to touch it, resolved he would check it out on the weekend when the house was quiet.
 
There it sat for several days, on his desk! In the havoc of the post-arson days, Ernst told me once he almost forgot about it!
 
The weekend came. Ernst started inspecting the parcel which had the return address, a P.O. box, of someone he had briefly talked to in British Columbia on his lecture tour. He shook the parcel, and it rattled. Just as he was about to open it, the phone rang, and this very acquaintance was on the phone.
 
Talk about being watched over by heaven!
 
Ernst asked this man if he had sent a parcel, citing the address. The man said, no - it was a P.O. box he had not used in more than two years. That's when Ernst knew that the parcel contained a bomb.
 
This parcel bomb was exploded that night by a police robot. It was so deadly that it would have killed anybody in a radius of 300 feet.
 
One police officer insisted with a smirk that Ernst had sent it to himself, to make himself more interesting and get himself back in the news as a victim!
 
In the book "Covert Entry" that was published a few years ago, Globe and Mail investigative reporter, Andrew Mitrovica, makes the claim that CSIS, Canada's civilian spy agency, had foreknowledge of the bomb and warned its undercover agents, one of them a former thief named John Farrell, not to touch a parcel coming from the West Coast addressed to Ernst Zundel. Farrell later spilled the beans about this matter to Mitrovica. This bomb traveled on several Canada Air passenger planes and could have endangered not only airline staff and passengers but also postal workers anywhere along the way.
 
Now that CSIS is the very agency that tries to incriminate Ernst Zundel as a "national security risk", both John Farrell and Andrew Mitrovica are slated to testify via subpoena. You can imagine that neither is eager to do so. It does not take an Einstein to know that CSIS would be breathing down their necks if they elaborate under oath what has been claimed in Covert Entry.
So far, Farrell has bolted the subpoena. Mitrovica is fighting it. The Globe and Mail write-up below is about Mitrovica's attempt to get out from under scrutiny what has been documented in his book.
 
[START]
 
Writer fights Zundel subpoena
 
Author, judge object to taking stand at Holocaust denier's deportation hearing
 
By KIRK MAKIN
JUSTICE REPORTER
 
UPDATED AT 6:32 PM EDT Thursday, May. 6, 2004
 
A Federal Court of Canada judge showed no sympathy yesterday for an author fighting to stay off the witness stand at Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel's deportation hearing.
 
Mr. Justice Pierre Blais said that author Andrew Mitrovica should be prepared to account for splashy allegations of wrongdoing in his recent book, Covert Entry, on the Canadian Security Intelligence Services.
 
"He seems to not care about national security," Judge Blais observed sternly, waving a copy of the book. "He seems to care more about selling books."
 
Lawyers for Mr. Zundel are hoping to use Mr. Mitrovica's testimony to shake the general credibility of CSIS. They are particularly eager to question him about a 1995 incident in which CSIS allegedly knew a pipe bomb was being sent to Mr. Zundel through the mail, yet failed to warn him.
 
"It is appropriate that I should be able to challenge the most important witness against Mr. Zundel -- and the most important witness is CSIS," lawyer Peter Lindsay said yesterday. "If we don't hear from Mr. Mitrovica, we simply are not going to get to the bottom of these matters."
 
CSIS provided information which Judge Blais has heard in secret sessions, and which purportedly shows Mr. Zundel to be a national security risk. The Zundel defence team is not privy to the information, yet it must still convince Judge Blais that it is unreliable. Should it fail, Mr. Zundel will be deported to Germany to face a five-year prison term for the crime of denying the Holocaust.
 
Mr. Mitrovica's lawyer, Brian Rogers, argued yesterday that writers are mere conduits for information whose work ought to stand for itself. He said Mr. Mitrovica's plight goes to the heart of press freedom and represents the latest in a chain of cases that have chilled writers and journalists.
 
"This is an issue that is very important, very broad, and will no doubt go to the Supreme Court of Canada in due course," Mr. Rogers said. He said that Mr. Mitrovica's sweeping subpoena demands virtually every piece of paper in his possession pertaining to CSIS.
 
"If they get their way and he is called [to testify] . . . this will be a one-person commission of inquiry into CSIS," Mr. Rogers said. He argued that Mr. Lindsay ought to have subpoenaed the CSIS agents quoted in Mr. Mitrovica's book, rather than pursuing someone who merely published their "hearsay" accounts.
 
"Mr. Lindsay should be going after the horses, not Mr. Mitrovica; the farmer who is guarding the barn door," Mr. Rogers said. "He is the wrong guy."
 
Judge Blais, a former federal solicitor-general, said he found it surprising that Mr. Mitrovica would try to shield himself in a cloak of journalistic immunity instead of wanting to help ensure that potentially illegal acts are dealt with properly.
 
The judge reserved his ruling on four separate attempts to quash defence subpoenas. Besides Mr. Mitrovica, others hoping to avoid testifying are Ontario Court Judge Lauren Marshall, a former lawyer of Mr. Zundel's; Canadian Jewish Congress President Keith Landy, and Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B'nai Brith Canada.
 
After initially agreeing to respond to her subpoena, Judge Marshall sent a lawyer on Tuesday to fight it. Her lawyer, Paul Stern, told Judge Blais yesterday that anything his client could say is either irrelevant or improper.
 
[END]


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