MOUNTIE PROBE INTO ORGANIZED CRIME DRUGS REACHES INSIDE B.C. LEGISLATURE

VANCOUVER - One of the men connected to a Sunday police raid on the
legislature offices of two B.C. cabinet ministers said Monday he's done
nothing wrong and expects to be exonerated.

David Basi, ministerial assistant to Finance Minister Gary Collins, said in
a statement he was told by RCMP that he ''was not being arrested or charged
at this time.''

Basi, who was fired Monday, made the statement after police raided the
offices of Collins and Transportation Minister Judith Reid, seizing boxes
of files.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. John Ward said the raid was based on information
related to an organized-crime drug case, as well as unrelated information
discovered as a byproduct of a 20-month drug investigation that resulted in
the arrests last week of nine people.

He stressed the search warrants at the legislature were aimed at two
non-elected officials and did not involve any provincial politicians. No
arrests have been made nor charges laid in connection with the legislature
raid, he said.

''I want to make it clear it's not a political investigation,'' said Ward.

Media reports said the searches involved records thought to be in the
offices of Basi and Robert Virk, an assistant to Reid.

Global affiliate BCTV reported that Basi and Virk are brothers-in-law.

Basi's appointment was rescinded Monday and Virk was suspended with pay.

Police did not say what evidence was being sought. No wrongdoing was
alleged against either Basi or Virk.

Solicitor General Rich Coleman said the government's oft-stated concern
about the $6-billion annual drug business in B.C. is not compromised by an
investigation that reached the legislature.

''It clearly tells the people of this province that we will not allow any
area of our government or our province to be compromised by organized
crime,'' he said in Victoria.