'HE FEARED FOR HIS FAMILY'

Accused Mistook Officers With Battering Ram For Thieves, Lawyer Says

Basile Parasiris, his wife and two children awoke in a panic as
police used a battering ram to break into their Brossard home and
then started firing their guns inside during Friday's pre-dawn raid,
his lawyer said yesterday.

Lawyer Frank Pappas said his client was trying to defend himself and
his family when he grabbed a loaded gun and shot Laval Constable
Daniel Tessier - whom Parasiris mistook for a crazed thief.

"If he would've believed it was the police, do you think he would
have taken them on?" Pappas said in an interview. "They have more
firepower than him."

Parasiris, 41, appeared briefly in Quebec Court in Longueuil
yesterday, dressed in a white

T-shirt and dark pants, as tearful family members waved and blew him
kisses from the courtroom audience.

Parasiris was arraigned on four counts: first-degree murder in the
death of Tessier; attempted murder in the shooting of his partner,
Constable Stephane Forbes; firing a gun with the intent to wound
Forbes; and endangering Forbes's life.

Parasiris did not enter a formal plea on the charges.

The case was put off until April 16, when a date is to be set for a
preliminary hearing.

Pappas is considering applying for bail, but would have to make a
special request to Superior Court, which automatically deals with
first-degree murder charges.

Parasiris's brother, Nick, said the family is sorry for the death of
Tessier, a father of two adolescent girls - but maintained his
brother had no idea it was police in his house.

The raid at the Rimouski Cres. home was one of eight that Laval
police carried out Friday in Laval and Brossard, following a
nine-month investigation of an alleged cocaine and crack trafficking
gang based in Laval's Chomedey district.

The seven Laval raids resulted in six arrests and no injuries.

Forbes, 46, was one of at least 13 other officers involved and is
recovering in a hospital from a bullet wound to his arm.

According to Pappas, police didn't find anything in the Parasiris home.

"There was no body, no drugs, no large quantities of firearms," he
said. "They may have found one or two pills of Viagra that he didn't
have a prescription for.

"This guy's no terrorist."

Police should have known that Parasiris kept a registered gun, Pappas
said - although he admitted that it was illegal to keep it loaded.

"Absolutely, he should pay for that," Pappas said. "But my client
acted responsibly and is absolutely innocent (of first-degree murder)."

While Parasiris was being arraigned, his wife, Penny Panagiota
Gounis, was being questioned by police in a hospital, where she is
recovering from bullet wounds.

In February, she was an organizer of a fundraising spaghetti dinner
at her husband's virtual golf course in Dorval, Golf-O-Max, to raise
money for more than 30 people left homeless by a five-alarm blaze at
a building on nearby Lepage Ave.

Their 15-year-old son sat in the courtroom yesterday, refusing to
look at his father in the prisoner's box. According to Pappas, the
son called 911 after the police barged into the family home and
bullets started flying.

"Do you think that if they knew they were police officers, they'd
call 911?" Pappas said.

The couple's 6-year-old daughter and her brother are being cared for
by relatives.

The defence lawyer said he is convinced his client didn't know he was
shooting a police officer; otherwise he never would have agreed to
take on the case.

"If it had been some gratuitous shooting, where some gang member or
someone walked up to a cop and just shot him, I would never defend
him," Pappas said, adding he gets along well with all police forces.

"I believe this guy feared for his life and his family, and that's
why he did what he did."