ZGram - 9/23/2003 - "Zundel Bail Hearing: Delay is the name of the government game!"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

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

September 23, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

We are living in Stalinist times.  I had managed to persuade Dr. 
Lorraine Day, a world-renown surgeon who has trained thousands of 
doctors, to fly to Toronto to examine Ernst and find out what the 
story is about his health and to give testimony at the hearing if at 
all possible, and I did not know if she had been admitted to the 
stand.  I was on pins and needles all day long. 

I reached her in late afternoon;  she told me of an incredible 
struggle to even be admitted to testify, since even the judge had put 
roadblocks in her way, but she had managed with the help of defense 
attorney, Doug Christie - and later Barbara Kulaszka, another 
attorney on the Zundel Team, told me that Dr. Day "...was a great 
witness - knowledgeable, fearless!  Just great!" 

Only very late that night did I get to talk to Ernst who is always at 
the mercy of the goodwill of the guards on whether or not he will 
even get the telephone.

He agreed that Dr. Day had been a powerful, impressive witness, but 
the rest of the hearing was creeping - and creepy! - delay.  Delay, 
delay, and more delay!  If bail isn't decided this round, Ernst told 
me, the next bail hearing will be in December.  The tactic, he 
explained to me, is clearly to keep him in jail - evidently with the 
aiding and abetting of the judge, to use a vernacular phrase. 

"Understand the political constellation," he told me.  "Two ministers 
have declared me a security risk.  Is the judge going to let a 
security risk walk the streets?  He is there to do the government's 
job.  Be realistic."

At that point I said:  "Then why even continue with the charade?"

Ernst told me:  "You have to understand that they want to keep me 
here until after the election.  The politicians can tell their 
constituents, "We said we would get him, and we have!  He is now in 
our power!"  And Ernst added quietly:  "Millions are being raised on 
my back."

Where do we go from here?  We have added two young attorneys to our 
team who have a practice in Toronto, which will help.  They will take 
over the case in the Provincial Court of Ontario.  Ernst is very 
pleased with them, as are his regular attorneys.  However, Ernst 
believes that the only way to dislodge him from the clutches of his 
enemies is public awareness - in other words, media.  He says that 
with politically beholden courts, an unpopular dissident has next to 
no chance.  Only public outrage at the injustice of it all will make 
a difference. 

That's where we are going to focus our energies now.  I ask for your 
help - each and every one of you on my list.  You can help, and you 
must help if you care about what is happening to all of our freedom. 
You can help with donations to pay for the costs on the legal front, 
and you can help by creating awareness in the weeks and months to 
come.  I will tell you how, and together we will mount not only a 
defense but a media offense that is going to leave our enemies' heads 
spinning!  I am already working on a dramatic plan!

Here is Ernst's Zundel on-location representative, Paul Fromm, 
reporting about yesterday from the Absurdistan Front:

[START]


Toronto. September 23, 2003

ANOTHER SECRET HEARING & DOCTOR WARNS ZUNDEL'S LIFE'S IN DANGER

	When the detention hearing (bail review) for German-born 
publisher Ernst Zundel re-opened today in Toronto, Federal Judge 
Pierre Blais refused to recuse himself for bias. He also announced at 
the beginning of the hearing that he had agreed with the request of 
the Justice Department to conduct another secret hearing in Ottawa in 
early September. No report of the evidence or witnesses at this 
hearing was disclosed to the defence. U.S. doctor Lorraine Day, a 
surprise defence witness, testified that prison conditions posed a 
serious threat to Mr. Zundel who suffers from high blood pressure and 
a growth on his chest, which she fears may be a recurrence of cancer.

	When the hearing opened, Mr. Justice Blais said: "On July 30, 
Mr. Christie put a motion for recusal. After telephone conversations, 
the parties agreed to written submissions." Originally, Mr. Justice 
Blais had said he'd render a decision by the end of August, after 
reading the transcripts which were to be available in mid-August. 
Apparently, the Crown sought the delay to submit further arguments in 
writing. This allowed Mr. Justice Blais to set a September 9 deadline 
for sumbissions and, thus, to delay announcing his decision until 
Monday, September 22.

	Soon after Court resumed, Mr. Justice Blais said he'd agreed 
with a Department of Justice request for an ex parte hearing in early 
September "to hear evidence in camera that would not be disclosed to 
Mr. Zundel."

	Mr. Christie reminded the judge of his promise in the July 
hearings to see whether some of the material from the numerous secret 
hearings thus far might be added to the government disclosure 
summary. "So far, there is no evidence that can be added to the 
summary and made public." However, he added, "the hearing is not yet 
over and I'll keep it in mind, but there are different reasons why 
the [secret] information cannot be made public."

	A fierce argument ensued when defence lawyer Douglas H. 
Christie sought to interrupt Crown Attorney Donald MacIntosh's 
cross-examination of Ernst Zundel, now in its fifth day, to introduce 
a surprise witness, Dr. Lorraine Day, a California orthopaedic 
surgeon. Dr. Day, 67, was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer in 
1993. She had a lump the size of a grapefruit on her chest. Formerly 
a practitioner of orthodox medicine, Dr. Day searched, experimented 
and cured herself through natural techniques which include extensive 
consumption of water, proper nutrition and reduction of stress. Since 
then, she's been an outspoken advocate of natural healing and has 
produced numerous books and videos. Day created a furor when she went 
public with charges that the AIDS virus can be transmitted in aerosol 
form. She ceased doing surgeries, as she said she was putting herself 
at unacceptable risk.

	Crown Attorney Donald MacIntosh strongly objected to the 
surprise witness. Initially, the judge was reluctant to hear Dr. Day. 
"You know something. There are people who are in jail for 25 years 
and are sick and they don't let them out."

	"Mr. Zundel isn't even charged with a crime," Mr. Christie responded.

	"He's detained because he's considered a threat to national 
security," the judge shot back.

	Several of the 25 Zundel supporters hissed at this comment.

	An angry Mr. Justice Blais threatened the spectators. "You 
won't interrupt my court. Get out, if you won't be silent!"

	Mr. Justice Blais accepted Dr. Day as a witness, but not as 
an "expert" witness, because she had not filed a report on her visit 
Monday to Ernst Zundel. Douglas Christie pointed out that permission 
had not been granted by  provincial authorities for Dr. Day to visit 
and examine Mr. Zundel until last Friday. She flew in from California 
on Sunday and examined him Monday morning.

	"The rules allow you to accept anything you want. Section 
78.j. of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act says that the 
judge may accept anything into evidence, even if it is not admissible 
otherwise."

	Dr. Day, a slim blonde dressed in a light blue suit, took the 
stand. "There is a cartilagenous mass, a tumor, measuring an inch by 
and inch by an inch, at the inferior portion of the sternum," she 
told the Court. While in prison, "Mr. Zundel's blood pressure has 
been as high as 235/135, and that's in the area of stroke. In the 
past several years, he's had a blood pressure problem which he's 
handled by natural therapy."

	Dr. Day testified that the prison has been giving Mr. Zundel 
a beta blocker to control the high blood pressure. "Beta blockers 
have enormous side-effects," she warned. These side-effects can 
include cardiac arrest, arterial thrombosis, colitis, mental 
depression, memory loss , catatonia and even death. "He has some side 
effects," she observed, "including cold extremities, difficulty in 
urinating, memory loss, unsteadiness in his gait, and low heart rate.'

	"He has a low resting heart rate of 56, a false rate due to 
the medication," she testified.

	"He needs sunlight, fresh air. The stress of incarceration is 
immense and is raising his blood pressure."

	Asked by Mr. Christie for her conclusion after her 
examination of dissident publisher Ernst Zundel, Dr. Day said his 
continued incarceration "is life threatening, especially with his 
blood pressure and the tumor increasing in size."

	Under cross examination, Dr. Day elaborated: "Every beta 
blocker has side effects. Sometimes the  patient usn't aware of them. 
The side effects get much more serous the older one gets." The prison 
had ordered an x-ray of Mr. Zundel's chest in July, after he 
complained of the growth. "The radiologist didn't even look for the 
tumor," Dr. Day charged. "A p.s. on his report says that he was only 
told after the x-ray was taken that the patient had a mass."

	In her exchange with the Crown, Dr. Day noted acidly about 
holocaust skeptic Ernst Zundel's present incarceration: "It's not a 
criminal activity in my country to question anything."

	When Ernst Zundel, dressed in an olive coloured windbreaker, 
took the stand and sat down, he joked pointedly, "Yes, I got a good 
chair this time," referring to the fact that prison authorities 
continue to deny him a chair in his solitary confinement cell.

	The rest of the day consisted of an interminable 
cross-examination of Ernst Zundel by Crown Attorney Donald MacIntosh, 
seeking to connect Mr. Zundel to various nationalist leaders or 
revisionists in a process Mr. Zundel denounced as 
guilt-by-association. Mr. MacIntosh frequently sounded as if he were 
testifying in his questioning.

	A typical exchange had Mr. MacIntosh asking about Ewald 
Althans, a former advance man for Mr. Zundel in Germany, who, when 
charged under Germany's anti-free speech laws, made a deal with the 
Office for the Protection of the Constitution to give the names of 
5,000 rightists in exchange for 360,000 Deutsche Marks. He later 
moved to Holland to live with his homosexual lover, an antique dealer.

	MacIntosh; "Althans' office was in Munich?"

	Zundel: "Correct."

	MacIntosh: "Munich is the birthplace of the Nazi Party."

	Zundel: "Correct."

	MacIntosh: "Were you aware Althans didn't like Black people?"

	Zundel: "No."

	MacIntosh: "Were yo aware he didn't like Jewish people?"

	Zundel: "Yes. Well, some Jewish people. He has an uncle who 
is  Jewish."

	Finally, an exasperated Douglas Christie objected. "This 
whole process makes me wonder what's going on. Unsubstantiated 
newspaper clippings are put to the witness to see if he can recognize 
them. It's a fishing expedition." What does this have to do "with 
whether he's a threat to national security or a flight risk," the 
points of contention in the detention hearing, he demanded.

	After questioning Mr. Zundel about a series of personalities, 
Mr. MacIntosh, after each name, would ask, "like you, he was a great 
admirer of Adolf Hitler?"

	Finally, Ernst Zundel shot back: "Mr. MacIntosh, you have 
Hitler on the brain. I do not."

	Much of the afternoon questioning centred on an expose by the 
U.S. Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Questioned about Pastor Richard 
Butler of the Aryan Nations, whom he'd met just once, Mr. Zundel 
retorted: "The ADL is a Jewish hate group. What you're reading from 
is their take on Butler. This is ADL propaganda, as far as I'm 
concerned.  I feel like a Black man convicted on Ku Klux Klan 
evidence. The ADL was convicted of burglary and spying and fined 
$500,000. Don't show me some Jewish propaganda and then ask me to 
agree with it."

	On the stand, Mr. Zundel noted that he'd been examining the 
1,806 pages of newspaper clippings, reports, and portions of books 
that form the Crown's public case against him.

	"A net is being woven here of guilt-by-association," Mr. 
Zundel replied, when questioned about former Canadian Aryan Nations 
representative Terry Long. "I met Terry Long for 10 minutes after a 
speech in Calgary 15 years ago. Yet, there are 300 pages of 
information about Mr. Long" in the Crown's documents.

	Mr. MacIntosh, a thin man with a mane of unruly, iron grey 
hair, hunched over the podium, with his nose, at times, just inches 
from the document he was reading.

	The Court audience grew increasingly agitated by the Crown's 
badgering of Mr. Zundel. At the end of the day, Mr. Justice Blais 
asked Mr. MacIntosh about his intentions for the next day. He 
indicated that he'd continue the cross-examination of Mr. Zundel. 
When asked how long he thought he would need, he replied, "all day."

	Many in the audience groaned. Judge Blais exploded: "I will 
not tolerate this type of comment here. You do not have to be here. 
You can just get out," he threatened.

	Seemingly taking their cue from the judge's aggressive 
attitude to Mr. Zundel's supporters in Court, one of the Court 
security guards, nameless, so I'll call him Stringbean, asked two 
German men, one a leader of the Danube Swabian community, to be quiet 
or leave. He claimed he could hear their whispers across the 
courtroom. They were standing directly behind me and I heard nothing.

	As soon as Court was over, Stringbean tried to shoo us all 
out. When I didn't move fast enough, he demanded: "Do you have a 
problem with  that?"

	"Yes," I said, "I have a big problem with a country treating 
a man the way they're treating Zundel."

	Parroting the judge, Stringbean said: "You don't have to be here."

	"We pay their salaries," a number of furious spectators said 
as they gathered outside the courtroom and discussed the Judge's 
threats. "It's just more German-bashing."

	One of the few opponents of Ernst Zundel  present was lawyer 
Anita Bromberg, who sported an ID bade indicating that she was a 
staff person for the League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith.

	After the Judge threatened the audience, one of Mr. Zundel's 
supporters whispered: "God help this country."

	Bomberg leaned over and warned "I could report you to the judge."

	The hearing continues tomorrow.

Paul Fromm 

[END]