MARTIN HIT TARGET?

Drug Accused Tells of How He Turned Down $300,000 in Plot To
Assassinate the Man Who Would Be PM

BRAMPTON -- A contract on the life of then finance minister Paul
Martin was being shopped around Toronto's underworld in 2003, a former
police informant testified yesterday.

Two contracts, worth up to $300,000, were offered, said accused
cocaine trafficker Vincent Brown at an abuse of process hearing.

Brown has applied to have his drug charges dropped because he claims
the RCMP broke its word after he came forward with information about
the assassination plan.

"Someone hired me to assassinate Paul Martin," he told his lawyer, Sam
Goldstein. "I turned the offer down. I felt I was being set up."

The RCMP took the matter seriously enough to give Brown a polygraph
test on May 27, 2003. Nine days later news reports surfaced that
Martin's security had been increased.

Replaced Chretien

At the time Martin was still finance minister and a front-runner to
replace outgoing prime minister Jean Chretien.

A Canadian Press report from the time quotes an unnamed RCMP source
who indicated they had information Martin's safety was at risk.

Brown said the man who asked him if he would accept the contract was a
"loanshark" named Augustine D'Souza.

Brown said another person had been asked to fulfil the contract, but
instead vanished with the money.

"One was planned before and it failed," Brown said. "They had paid
someone before. They needed a backup plan."

Brown said he was contacted by D'Souza around Dec. 16, 2002. Two days
later he was arrested on firearms charges -- which eventually died
after a preliminary hearing.

Brown was charged with drug offences after police completed project
OPAN, a large scale investigation targeting the cocaine trade in the
U.S., Central and South America.

Under cross-examination by federal Crown Surinder Singh Aujla, Brown
admitted he owed D'Souza about $200,000 because of a failed real
estate deal.

'Which Paul Martin'

Little else was said in court about D'Souza despite Brown's
claims.

But in a statement filed in court as an exhibit yesterday, Brown tells
two officers more about the alleged deal.

"I said how much money are we talking about, and he said, well, it's
65, 75 (thousand). I said come on Augie, that kind of money, he said
no, 300, but I gotta make some money too."

Then Brown asked who the target was.

"He said, Paul Martin. So I said which Paul Martin? He said, the Paul
Martin. So I said which Paul Martin? He said the minister Paul Martin."

Aujla argued there was never a deal to grant Brown immunity for his
information about the hit on Martin.

He accused Brown of coming up with the assassination story so police
would go after D'Souza.

Brown said he believed D'Souza wanted Martin dead, and he believed the
police when they told him they would protect him and grant him immunity.

Aujla asked him why he didn't have, and didn't ask for, a written
immunity offer from the national security and police officials who
interviewed him. "Where would I keep it," Brown said, explaining he
was in custody in Maplehurst at the time. "I would be killed before I
got back to the cell."

The hearing continues today.