ROLE AS POLICE INFORMANT 'RUINED' HIM, CLAIMS MAN

A man who claims to be a former RCMP informant has launched a hunger
strike in front of Mountie headquarters and filed complaints with
police over the way he says he was treated.

Ioan Margineau, 37, said yesterday he was recruited by RCMP Cpl. Denis
Travanut and the Edmonton Police Service's Det. Steve Showler in
November 1997 to infiltrate an international drug trafficking ring.

"I cannot enjoy my community, I cannot go to the church, I cannot help
my daughter who is now in bed with pneumonia," he said yesterday. "I
am ruined."

Margineau said he sent a complaint to RCMP and city police Dec. 17
claiming they did not properly protect him while he was in their
service and they did not properly compensate him while he worked as an
undercover agent.

He said he got involved with the police in November 1997 after two
"bad guys" asked him to take a Chev Silverado truck down to Miami,
Florida, to pick up drugs.

Worried, Margineau said he called the RCMP who enlisted him to work
undercover for them.

That set off a month-long trek from Miami to Costa Rica, Panama and
Romania via land, air and sea in a truck loaded with cocaine.

When he arrived in Panama, he said he was threatened by drug dealers
who claimed to be with the infamous Cali drug cartel in Colombia.

He's already been paid $10,000 from police and figures he's owed
another $73,000, said Margineau.

He started his hunger protest Monday in front of RCMP K-Division
headquarters. He started another hunger strike in front of RCMP
headquarters in Ottawa in May 1998. He said he ended that protest when
his health started to deteriorate.

He returned to Edmonton in 1998 and since then has been afraid for his
life and suffers panic attacks. He also claims to be financially destitute.

The head of Alberta's RCMP, Assistant Commissioner Don McDermid, said
yesterday he couldn't comment on the case because of federal witness
protection legislation.

"We can't say much about this," McDermid said. "If this guy wants to
tell a story he's on his own."

Edmonton police Chief Bob Wasylyshen said he hoped the dispute could
be resolved and added that he would look into it.

"I don't know if the facts set out by the individual are accurate."