- Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
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- 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:
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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!"
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- These items were turned over to Toronto police who, again,
chose not to follow up.
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- 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.
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- 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!
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- 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.
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- Talk about being watched over by heaven!
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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!
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- [START]
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- Writer fights Zundel subpoena
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- Author, judge object to taking stand at Holocaust denier's
deportation hearing
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- By KIRK MAKIN
- JUSTICE REPORTER
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- UPDATED AT 6:32 PM EDT Thursday, May. 6, 2004
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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."
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- 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.
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- "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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- "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.
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- "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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- [END]
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