JUDGE REFUSES TO LIFT LID ON DRUG WARRANTS

TC Denied Access To Details Of Raids On B.C. Legislature

DUNCAN -- A provincial court judge refused Tuesday to grant the Times
Colonist access to two federal drug-investigation warrants linked to
December's police raids on the B.C. legislature.

But Judge Keith Bracken did reveal that police and the judiciary went to
extraordinary lengths to keep secret all the warrant information connected
to the 20-month-long investigation into drugs and money-laundering that
resulted in a spinoff investigation and legislature search.

Bracken said that beginning in August, authorities determined that
search-warrant information would be "treated in a different way" in this
investigation.

That included the sealing of all search warrants, information to obtain
those warrants, and even the sealing orders themselves.

Bracken said all drug warrants in the investigation, beginning in late
August or early September, were signed by a judge in Duncan provincial
court. But that information was subsequently shipped back to Vancouver for
storage by the chief administrative judge and was not even assigned court
file numbers.

The documents arrived at the Duncan court in sealed packages and were
shipped out the same way, Bracken said.

"The warrants were placed in sealed packages, many of the sealing orders
themselves were sealed and held separate and apart from the usual court
process to protect the integrity of the investigation," said Victoria
lawyer Mike Scherr, who represented the Times Colonist and CH Television at
Tuesday's hearing.

"This speaks to the magnitude of the investigation."

But while Bracken shed some light on the unusual security measures used in
this case, he refused to unseal two federal drug warrants that are linked
to the legislature raid but weren't included in earlier media applications
heard by Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm in B.C. Supreme Court.

The two warrants dealt with Tuesday are for searches on or about Dec. 9 at
the former home of Mandeep Sandhu, at 4150 Bremerton St. in Saanich, and on
or about Dec. 28 at a property owned by David Basi, at 3260 Shawnigan Lake Rd.

Sandhu is the cousin of Victoria police officer Ravinder Dosanjh, who was
suspended Dec. 15 while RCMP and Victoria police conduct an investigation
into allegations of breach of trust and obstruction of justice.

Basi was the ministerial assistant to B.C. Finance Minister Gary Collins.
Basi was fired on Dec. 29, the day after police searched his office at the
legislature and his home in Saanich.

Police discovered and dismantled a marijuana grow operation when they
searched the property at 3260 Shawnigan Lake Rd. Basi has since said
through his lawyer Chris Considine that the property was a rental unit and
he had no knowledge of the grow-op.

While the search warrants for two legislature offices and Basi's Saanich
residence were among those issued and handled by Dohm, warrants for the
Bremerton Street and Shawnigan Lake Road properties were issued by Bracken.

Federal prosecutor Johannes Van Iperen, who is handling the drug case,
confirmed that all these warrants are related.

"The warrants basically all have the root in the same information. There's
a common starting point," Van Iperen said. "The question is whether there's
a risk to the other part of the investigation by releasing this information
here, and that was Mr. Justice Dohm's opinion."

On Jan. 23, Dohm ruled that he would not release edited information from
the other federal drug warrants, in large part because they are closely
"intertwined" with the non-drug warrants used for the legislature raid.

Dohm will resume the hearing on that media application on March 2 in
Vancouver. In the meantime, he has asked Van Iperen and special prosecutor
Bill Berardino, who is handling the non-drug case, to prepare summaries for
release to the media by that date.

On Tuesday, Bracken decided to put aside the Shawnigan Lake Road and
Bremerton Street search warrants until after March 2.

Lawyers for the Times Colonist, CH, CTV and the Globe and Mail had been
attempting to unseal information pertaining to those two warrants.

But Bracken ruled that to do so "would effectively undermine the order of
Justice Dohm."

While Van Iperen said the federal Crown has no objection to the information
in these two warrants being released, he told Bracken that the appropriate
thing to do would be to adjourn the hearing until after March 2.

Basi was represented in court Tuesday by David Lyon, an associate of
Considine. Lyon argued that the warrant information should not be released
because his client has no idea what is included in those warrants and
because to do so would undermine Dohm's decision.