COP'S HUNCH NOT GOOD ENOUGH, JUDGE RULES

A man arrested with a handgun and cocaine "spitballs" has had charges
stayed because his rights were breached by the arresting officer. "Rather
than use his head to honour the laws of this country, he (the officer)
chose to follow his hunch," Court of Queen's Bench Justice Lawrie Smith
said yesterday.

"Developing a hunch falls far short of reasonable grounds to detain."

Khaled Fidal Safadi was a passenger in a BMW pulled over by police in June
2003 for illegally tinted windows.

Const. Kevin Berge approached Safadi in the passenger seat because, he told
court, he saw that Safadi was not wearing a seat belt. Safadi mumbled when
he spoke.

"The constable became suspicious since Mr. Safadi had a large bulge in his
cheek," Smith recounted from evidence.

The bulge was from eight cocaine balls contained in a plastic bag inside
his mouth. A search also found a handgun in his clothing.

But the evidence doesn't support the officer's claim that he was
investigating a seatbelt law breach. That was a "ruse" by the officer,
Smith said.

"The grounds (to detain Safadi) are missing," she ruled.

Berge had also told court that he noted the three occupants of the car were
Lebanese men and there were a number of cell-phones in the car.

"He denied that these circumstances caused him to move forward in his
investigation," Smith said, but the significance placed on those
observations "causes the light to shine on these other two facts in a
different way."

The federal prosecutor asked the judge to stay the charges after the ruling
that the evidence against the 26-year-old Safadi could not be admitted at a
future trial.

Safadi, wearing blue Remand Centre coveralls, shook hands with defence
lawyer Akram Attia and left the courtroom smiling.

Safadi will not get his gun back; he was subject to a 10-year firearms
possession prohibition at the time of his illegal arrest.

In 1998, Safadi was one of four men sought by police after shots were fired
in a conflict between two groups of men in a parking lot at 121 Street and
137 Avenue.