ZGram - 4/14/2004 - "Second Day of Zundel Hearings"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

April 14, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

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 at 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. 

Now on to the write-up:

[START]

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

[END]


Reminder: 

Help free Ernst Zundel, Prisoner of Conscience.  His prison sketches 
- now on-line and highly popular - help pay for his defense.  Take a 
look - and tell a friend.

http://www.zundelsite.org/gallery/donations/index.html
=====