POLICE OFFICER TALKED MAN INTO DRUG DEAL

Judge Throws Out Charge: Cover Threatened When Chair Got Stuck In
Streetcar Tracks

TORONTO - A judge has thrown out trafficking charges against a
defendant who was arrested when he agreed to purchase $20 in crack
cocaine for a man in a wheelchair who was actually an undercover
Toronto police officer.

Fareed Ahamad, 41, was charged with trafficking in November, 2001,
even though the drug transaction was not his idea, he did not make any
money and he believed he was helping a disabled man who appeared to be
in pain.

''There are two factual elements that take this case somewhat outside
the usual,'' wrote Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy, as she
acquitted Mr. Ahamad of all charges, in a decision released on Oct.
31. ''First, it was the undercover officer [Constable Dennis
O'Driscoll] who initiated the transaction by approaching Mr. Ahamad
and asking about purchasing crack, not the other way around. Second,
as part of his disguise, the officer was using a wheelchair.''

The court heard that a police constable was ''wheeling himself'' along
the sidewalk of a busy street in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood,
when he saw Mr. Ahamad and another man standing outside a restaurant.

The undercover officer spoke to Mr. Ahamad and pleaded for some crack
cocaine. Mr. Ahamad agreed to go inside the restaurant and purchase
$20 in crack for the wheelchair-bound man.

The judge rejected the argument of federal Justice Department
prosecutor Wendy Houtmeyers that Mr. Ahamad was technically guilty of
trafficking.

Mr. Ahamad's lawyer, David Berg, praised Const. O'Driscoll for
admitting during the trial that he initiated the drug transaction. The
officer also testified that at one point in the evening, his
wheelchair was stuck in the streetcar tracks and he was unsure of how
to extricate himself without blowing his cover.

''The wheelchair was a prop. I don't think police will use it again,''
Mr. Berg said.