CSIS intercepted Zundel's mail, Ex-Agent says

Sept 18, 2004

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

Okay, one more time:

On May 8, 1995, the 50th anniversary of Germany's surrender to the Allies, the Toronto-based Zundel-Haus went up in flames. The arsonist, a street punk, was caught on video and later identified by name and location by one of his ARA buddies, whom he had told he had been paid $200 by "someone" to pour a flammable liquid and set the Zundel-Haus aflame. This information was turned over to the Toronto Metro Police, but there was no follow-up.

Ernst Zundel was on a speaking tour in Vancouver when this happened, where he was awakened to watch on TV how his headquarters and private residence burned. The damage was extensive - more than $400,000. Much of his library and archives, collected over a lifetime of research, perished in this fire. Jews danced the hora in the streets.

Ernst called me a few days later in San Diego where I then lived. I had only met him for the first time a month before at an IHR conference. During a very intense conversation by the ocean in Santa Barbara, where he and I had visited a childhood friend of mine, and where I offered I would help him in his struggle, he said to me: "There's a good chance that I will be assassinated. All of Toronto is blanketed with posters calling for my death."

That poster is still on the Zundelsite , as well as a picture of the arson.

http://www.zundelsite.org/english/debate/bored3.html

http://www.zundelsite.org/english/debate/house2.html

Upon his return from the West Coast, a few days after the fire, Ernst received a badly spelled, anonymous letter in the mail that threatened: "Next time it will be BOOM!"

A suspiciously heavy parcel arrived soon thereafter. It had the P.O. Box address of a supporter in Vancouver whom Ernst had met about a week before. That day, the Zundel-Haus was a beehive of activity - staff and volunteers who had rushed in from all over the world were busy dealing with the arson's aftermath. Ernst put the parcel aside on his desk, warning his people not to touch it. He would deal with it on the weekend when the house was quiet and he could find out what it was.

He told me later - in fact, just a few days ago again when he recalled the terror unleashed in the streets of Toronto against him - how several of his people had been curious, had shaken that parcel because it seemed to rattle, and that especially one of his kitchen volunteers, Maggie, had wanted to open it right then and there. Ernst did not allow it - and actually forgot about it in the havoc of the emergency that was on his hands.

On the following weekend, as the house was quiet, he took the parcel from the window sill - and was just about to open it when the telephone rang. Ernst put the parcel down and took the receiver. Talk about serendipity, a guardian angel, or interference from "above" - the caller was the very person whose name and address was on the parcel.

Ernst asked this man if he had sent a parcel. The man said NO, it was an inactive postal box number that had not been used for two years.

That's when Ernst knew it was a bomb.

He put the parcel very gently on a bed of birdseeds in the trunk of his Chrysler and took it to the police - who accused him of having sent to bomb to himself to make himself "more interesting" and get himself back in the news!

This was ten years ago. He called me that night and told me. Of course I was plain horrified. When I asked why he had done such a dangerous and even foolish thing, he gave a Zundel answer: He said he did not want to disturb the quiet weekend neighborhood by having screeching police cars arrive at his door; the arson had already upset them enough!

Later that evening, he watched on television how the parcel bomb was exploded by a robot. It ripped a huge hole in the earth. It was so powerful it would have killed anybody in a radius of 300 feet.

Several years later a book was published in Toronto, titled Covert Entrly: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada's Secret Service, written by investigative journalist Andrew Mitrovica, based on interviews with a former CSIS agent, John Farrell, who spilled the beans about the illegal activities of Canada's civilian spy agency.

In this book that won several awards for excellence in journalism, several pages describe how CSIS had surreptitiously intercepted Zundel mail for years, and how at one point CSIS undercover agents were warned not to touch a parcel that would arrive from Vancouver. That parcel traveled from Vancouver to Toronto on passenger airline, Canada Air, then from Toronto to Ottawa, again on passenger airline, and then back to Toronto where it was delivered by a regular postman to the Zundel-Haus - with CSIS knowing all the while such a parcel would be in transit, and without anyone having been warned!

This parcel could have exploded on any of the three airlines, in the various mail rooms, on postal vehicles, or in the Zundel-Haus, endangering and maybe killing hundreds of people. How did CSIS know it was coming? And since they knew, why did they not intercept it? Why did they not alert police? Why did they not warn the airlines, the postal employees, Ernst and his staff?

The man in the street will proffer his opinion that, at the very least, whoever knew about his parcel in transit at CSIS and did not warn authorities or potential victims, was an accessory to an attempted assassination of Ernst Zundel. In fact, a later police report called it "attempted murder" of Ernst Zundel, but that phrase and his name were also dropped from the file of an investigation that likewise fizzled out.

CSIS is now the very agency that has supplied the "secret evidence" on which Ernst Zundel is to be convicted as a "security risk to Canada." John Farrell was this week's witness who had to be tracked down and forced to testify. Farrell is a teacher in a private Catholic school - we can assume his salary is modest. He has one of the most expensive Canadian lawyers by his side whose job is to smother the inquiry.

The hearings about the "security certificate" have now concluded. Ernst, having been kidnapped in the U.S. in a rendition, we now know involving at least three, possibly four countries, has now been in prison as a "suspected security risk" for almost two years. Just whose "security" is Ernst Zundel risking? Or is it, blatantly, the other way around?

On the agenda later this year are summations by both sides and oral argument. Judge Blais, a former CSIS boss, has run interference for CSIS throughout. How will he rule? Nobody is holding his breath.

In the meantime, the Zundel case has reached the Supreme Court of Canada and is the object of much behind-the-scenes diplomacy. If Zundel loses, so does Canada. His deportation will enshrine the power of a secret agency that operates by rules all its own, just like in Soviet Russia. Truth won't be a defense. Secret hearings will be backed by law. Defense witnesses will not be allowed. If a victim is sentenced, there won't be an appeal.

Ernst told me several days ago: "Even if I walked on water, it would not make a difference. Shylock wants his pound of flesh."

Regardless. We are fighting on. We have a court date coming up in Knoxville. NO SURRENDER!

Below is the most recent write-up about the Zundel hearings:

[START]

CSIS INTERCEPTED ZUNDEL'S MAIL, EX-AGENT SAYS 

By Kirk Makin - The Globe and Mail (Toronto) - Friday, Sept. 17, 2004

Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials intercepted Ernst Zundel's mail and used commercial flights to send packages they were worried could have contained bombs to Ottawa for analysis, a former CSIS agent testified yesterday.

In compelled testimony at a deportation hearing for the Holocaust denier, ex-agent John Farrell said he warned his superiors several times that using commercial flights to send the packages was highly risky.

"You were personally aware of this?" asked Mr. Justice Pierre Blais of the Federal Court of Canada.

"Yes," said Mr. Farrell, 37.

"CSIS ignored you, putting the lives of Canadians at risk?" asked defence lawyer Peter Lindsay.

"Yes," Mr. Farrell said. "To the best of my knowledge."

Mr. Zundel did receive a package containing a pipe bomb during the period in which CSIS was monitoring his mail. He took it to police.

Mr. Lindsay grilled Mr. Farrell throughout the day about illegal mail opening and possible law breaking by CSIS. Mr. Farrell confirmed statements he made in a recent book - Covert Entry - that Mr. Zundel's mail was intercepted for several years.

However, Mr. Farrell distanced himself from some statements in the book that author Andrew Mitrovica attributed to him, including an opinion Mr. Farrell allegedly expressed that CSIS intentionally violated the law in its campaign against white supremacists.

"I didn't write that. And I didn't say that," Mr. Farrell testified.

However, Mr. Farrell conceded that in his view, CSIS's motto ought to be: "Lie, deny, and then act surprised."

Asked why he felt that way, Mr. Farrell said: "Because that was typical of what was going on in the service."

Mr. Lindsay hopes to expose CSIS as a rogue agency that will stop at nothing to attain its goals, which would taint the evidence it has assembled to justify deporting Mr. Zundel under a rarely used security certificate.

Under the security-certificate procedures, the evidence was presented in strict secrecy to Judge Blais. The defence must guess at what CSIS is alleging in its attempt to portray Mr. Zundel as dangerous to national security.

After 18 months of legal jousting, the hearing has increasingly taken on a surreal quality, its participants noticeably punchy. Yesterday, Mr. Farrell issued a sharp warning to Mr. Lindsay at one point not to be high-handed with him. Shortly afterward, Mr. Lindsay rebuked Judge Blais for ignoring Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence. Meanwhile, Judge Blais, a one-time solicitor-general of Canada with responsibility for CSIS, took turns upbraiding just about everyone.

Early in the day, he demanded that Mr. Farrell's lawyer, John Norris, move to a distant seat where he would be less inclined to make legal objections. He also chastised CSIS lawyer Murray Rodych for making baseless objections.

Mr. Lindsay, meanwhile, went after Mr. Rodych himself. "I see my friend, Mr. Rodych, is laughing again; snorting like a rat," Mr. Lindsay observed angrily.

Judge Blais also launched a tirade at Mr. Mitrovica, who was sitting in the back of the courtroom and apparently signalling his reaction to testimony. "You have a concern, Mr. Mitrovica, expressed with your body language?" the judge said sharply.

As Mr. Mitrovica began to defend himself, Judge Blais grew angrier. "You seem to laugh, to smile," he said. "I do care about managing the courtroom. It's not a show."

Prosecutors spent much of the day jumping up and down to object to questions, often on the grounds that responding to a question might jeopardize national security. Mr. Farrell was sent into the hallway so many times that Judge Blais apologized for the mileage he was putting on his shoes.

Mr. Zundel shook his head silently several times and stared at the courtroom clock.

[END]

See also: "Who is Ernst Zundel and Why Is He in Jail?" ( http://www.ihr.org/news/030923Zundel.shtml), and "Some Good News in the Zundel Case" ( http://www.ihr.org/news/040326zundel.shtml).

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Reminder:

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

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

Contribute to Ernst Zündel's Defence

Table of Contents for additional articles

Revisionism 101: Basic Revisionism

Revisionism 201 for Holocaust Skeptics

"David against Goliath": Ernst Zündel, fighting the New World Order

"Lebensraum!": Ingrid Rimland, pioneering a True World Order