[Diana Mendl was the third witness called by the Crown. She testified
on February 4, 1988.]
Diana Mendl was a supervisor of the radio programme archives and music
library for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The archive maintained
tapes of programmes which went on the air, firstly, as a record for the
history of Canada as portrayed by the CBC and, secondly, as a resource
for reuse in other programmes such as current affairs news programming.
(8-1615-16)
On January 7, 1988, in response to a search warrant, Mendl provided Sgt.
John Luby with two duplicate tapes of the Christof Friedrich item broadcast
on "As It Happens" on February 27, 1975. The cassette copies
were taken from the archives master tape number 750227-2 recorded during
the broadcast. (8-1617)
On cross-examination, Mendl stated that the CBC was very reluctant to give
up master tapes. The tape segment introduced in court was a tape of the
broadcast itself and not necessarily a tape of the entire interview which
took place. She admitted that it was "possible" that the interview
had been edited and cut for the radio programme. The only persons who would
be privy to the circumstances of that particular interview would be Barbara
Frum, the interviewee, any technicians present and the likely producer
of the show, Mark Starowicz. (8-1619, 1620; tape of the "As It Happens"
segment filed as Exhibit 5.)