I have been waiting for the conclusion of the April 13-14
Zundel hearings in Toronto to see where our NO SURRENDER front will move
next. In tomorrow's ZGram, I will summarize my changed strategies about my
hunger strike which will move to Washington, D.C. if all goes well, but will
likely have to be postponed for a week, as I will further explain tomorrow.
Up-front, I have a request for you from a very angry reader,
polacco.de.menasce@tiscali.fr , who would like to give a sadistic Canadian
lawyer, Alan Young, a piece of his mind. As you will remember, Young had
written that people like Ernst Zundel ought to be tortured into accepting
the Holocaust Dogma. My French friend wrote to me:
"I know how busy, to use a mild term, you are, but this
man Alan Young must have his nose blown with sand paper. I have got
"the Toronto Star" on a site but not its ADDRESS. Please get it
for me and If you want I will send you copy of my letter to this high flown
scoundrel."
My computer is still agonizingly slow and crashes often. I
don't have the time to look up this information. Please do it for me and
send my friend not only the Toronto Star email and address but also the
address and e-mail of Alan Young. Thank you.
Here, now, is Paul Fromm's write-up of the first day of the
two-day Zundel hearings. I need to add that this day was far more dramatic
than the write-up suggests - Paul Fromm must have been very tired.
According to various reports, Ernst was again at his best,
reading points into the record that are crucial. In fact, Ernst's testimony
has been described as so powerful that the opposition declined to
cross-examine him, for fear he might say even more that they don't want him
to say.
As far as I know, this happened previously only once, when
the feisty German-Jewish writer, Joseph (Ginz)Burg, a man who hated lies,
testified on Ernst's behalf in one of his Holocaust-debunking trials in the
1980s. The Jews never forgave (Ginz)Burg for that testimony and, in fact, in
typical Talmudic hate beyond the grave, refused to allow him to be buried in
a Jewish cemetery, and it is one of the sublime ironies of history that it
was up to Ernst Zundel a few years later to read the eulogy at (Ginz)Burg's
coffin in a Catholic church, right beneath Christ's cross. ((Ginz)Burg was
an avowed atheist!) Ernst insists he heard some rumbling of approval coming
from the coffin! I always loved that story, and it is going to be in my
Zundel movie script.
TORONTO. April 13, 2004. Forty minutes into publisher
Ernst Zundel's national certificate hearing in Toronto, this morning,
defence team lead counsel Peter Lindsay dropped a bombshell when he
announced that he had subpoenaed investigative journalist Andrew Mitrovica
who wrote the book Cover Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada's
Secret Service.
This book contains a powerful chapter exposing CSIS's
widespread opening of the mail of Canadian populists and their special
attention to Ernst Zundel in 1995. Even more shockingly, the book reveals
that CSIS knew a pipe bomb was headed for Mr. Zundel and, while it tried
to warn its mail-opening snoops not to touch packages from B.C. return
addresses, it did nothing to warn postal workers, Air Canada employees or,
of course, the intended assassination victim, Ernst Zundel.
Today's hearing had been scheduled to begin at 9:00 but
was delayed until after 9:30. For security reasons, Peter Lindsay had been
denied access to Ernst Zundel the day before at the Metro West Detention
Centre. He had had to meet with him behind bars in a court holding cell in
order to take instruction at court this morning. "I'm not criticizing
any of these four men who are providing security for Ernst Zundel,"
Mr. Lindsay told Mr. Justice Pierre Blais. "I had to consult with Mr.
Zundel in a locked jail cell beside a toilet. Surely, in the seven floors
of this building, we can provide a private place for attorney-client
consultation," he said referring to the ongoing deprivation and
degradation inflicted on the German-born dissident.
Mr. Lindsay filed newspaper reports and court documents
relating to the staying of charges against David Barbarash and David
Thurston, accused of mailing pipe bombs to people such as Ernst Zundel in
1995 and of mailing razor blades in booby trapped envelopes to hunters and
fur industry people, as well as Mr. Zundel. The charges were stayed in
2000 when the RCMP decided it would not comply with a judge's order to
provide disclosure for fear of jeopardizing other investigations and
informants and foreign intelligence agencies.
Thus, the alleged perpetrators of the 1995 mail bomb
assassination attempt on Ernst Zundel's life were never prosecuted.
Indeed, Peter Lindsay revealed, "Thurston's lawyer Michael Klein
confirmed that they were never charged with anything relating to the
attempted murder of Ernst Zundel or to mailing dangerous substances"
to Canada's most famous political prisoner.
As has been his habit since he took over the defence from
Victoria lawyer Douglas H. Christie, Mr. Lindsay asked presiding Judge
Pierre Blais: "Have there been any secret hearings since last
time?"
"I had one," Mr. Justice Blais replied. "I
was asked by the Minister's counsel to have a meeting. I expect to have
some information that I'm still waiting for," he added, apparently
referring to some sort of additional secret documents.
"How many sessions were there and how long did they
last?" Mr. Lindsay asked.
"He has no right to know," snapped chief Crown
attorney Donald MacIntosh.
An increasingly impassioned Mr. Lindsay argued: "I
take this very seriously. These secret proceedings have been criticized by
judges. I don't think it compromises the secrecy of the evidence to know
how much evidence is heard in private. Was it half an hour? One day, five
days?" he asked.
"There's no obligation to disclose this. You should
not disclose this," MacIntosh told the judge.
"I will not go further than what I said," Mr.
Justice Pierre Blais said, picking up the cue. "I met with counsel
for the minister >and received evidence," the former boss of CSIS
told Mr. Lindsay. "I will not give more information than that. For
security reasons, when or how long those meetings are, I will not
say."
Mr. Lindsay questioned the catch-all "national
security" that has been used to curtail even the most innocuous
questioning in this extraordinary case. "How is security compromised
by my knowing how many days of secret evidence was heard?"
"We're here to hear the case," the judge snapped
peremptorily.
When Ernst Zundel retook the witness stand, he was asked
about a January 3, 1995 letter from Janice Dembo of the Toronto Mayor's
Committee on Community and Race Relations. She "was a Jewish lady
from South Africa," Mr. Zundel told the court. The letter was sent to
Marion Boyd, the then-NDP Attorney-General of Ontario. "I have never
seen a letter from a bureaucrat on how to harass a person," Mr.
Zundel said. The letter complained of the "lack of legal action
against Ernst Zundel." It recommended sales tax audits, visits by
various municipal code inspectors, and removal of his mailing privileges
under Sec. 43 of the Postal Act. It concluded that, as Mr. Zundel had
applied for citizenship, "deportation may be the most expedient
method of ridding Canada of Mr. Zundel's noxious presence."
"I do not know how to spell out an invitation to a
vendetta better than this letter," Mr. Zundel testified. "There
were dire consequences for me. For 10 years I've been hounded." He
explained that he'd initially been told that he had to remit GST only on
sales of books or tapes. This ruling was cancelled and some time after
Dembo's inflammatory letter, Revenue Canada told him he had to remit GST
even on donations -- the bulk of his income.
In the spring of 1995, Mr. Zundel testified, he was
visited by a string of building inspectors, fire inspectors and even a
soil inspector, as well as various tax auditors.
Mr. Zundel cited a 1995 comment by Prime Minister Jean
Chretien addressing a Yad Vashem meeting in Toronto: "There's no
place in Canada for holocaust deniers."
"It's a vendetta," Mr. Zundel said forcefully.
"After my house was firebombed, a policeman called from 51 Division
and said: 'Ernst, there's a virtual vendetta against you. Be careful when
you go out. Don't go to the same restaurant twice. Go out, if you must,
with bodyguards. We can't protect you all the time.'"
His voice rising, Mr. Zundel said: "It's the same
method they used against Francois Beaudoin. He faced a Superior Court
judge in Quebec, but he didn't face secret hearings and secret
evidence." Mr. Zundel was referring to the former head of the
Business Development Corporation. A Quebec judge found that he's been
hounded and mistreated and his life ruined by Chretien operatives who
resented his refusal to grant a loan to one of Mr. Chretien's business
cronies.
Mr. Justice Blais interrupted the testimony. "Those
cases are before the courts. We'll not tolerate that. We're not here to
hear speeches" from Mr. Zundel.
"Some latitude should be given to my client to
express his theory as to what's happening to him," Mr. Lindsay
argued.
An increasingly angry judge snapped: "I made the
ruling about that."
Both Donald MacIntosh and Murray Rodych repeatedly
interrupted both Mr. Zundel's testimony and the subsequent questioning of
CSIS spokesman Dave Stewart with objections of "We've already heard
this before."
Both the Crown and the judge seem in a rush to judgement.
After Mr. Zundel's examination in chief was over, Murray Rodych declined
further cross-examination: "On instructions of the minister, I have
no more questions," he told the court.
At the end of the day, the judge warned: "I'm not
afraid to start earlier and stay longer. The closer we get to the end, the
longer we'll stay."
-- Paul Fromm
