COLLINS AIDE DECLARES INNOCENCE

B.C. Legislature Raid Came After Evidence Turned Up in Drug Probe:
Police

VANCOUVER (CP) -- One of the men connected to a weekend 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 released by his lawyer that he was told by the
RCMP that he "was not being arrested or charged at this time." "He has
co-operated fully with the police search," the statement said

Basi, who was fired Monday, made the statement a day 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 the 20month drug
investigation that resulted in the arrests last week of nine people.
He stressed the search warrants executed at the legislature were aimed
at two nonelected officials and did not involve any elected 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. Collins, vacationing in Hawaii, said that was his understanding
as well

"This to my knowledge has nothing to do with anything that would
relate to my role, and I think the RCMP has made that clear," he said

"Mr. Basi was not involved in the budget-making process or any of the
finance side of it. His role was house business, house leader and
caucus liaison for my role as house leader." Reid, on holiday in San
Francisco, said she was surprised by the raid and that her office was
co-operating with police

In addition, a search warrant was executed at the home of one of the
two officials, Ward said

Search warrants were also executed at the home offices of two other
persons living in the Vancouver area and at the office of a private
company doing business in Vancouver and Victoria, he said

At a separate news conference in Victoria, city police Chief Paul
Battershill said six locations were searched in Victoria, including an
accounting firm and the office of a consultant who lobbies the B.C.
Liberals on behalf of business interests

Global affiliate BCTV and CBC's The National reported Monday that
Pilothouse Public Affairs Group, a communications business, was among
those visited by RCMP

The news reports did not say why the office was visited. The company
has not been charged and there is no indication of wrongdoing.
Officials with the company could not be reached for comment Monday
night

Also, Mark Marissen, a consultant and Paul Martin strategist who is
also married to B.C. Education Minister Christy Clark, told the
station that RCMP visited him Sunday

He said the officers did not execute a search warrant, but asked for
his co-operation in retrieving some documents, the station reported
Monday night

CBC's The National reported the Marissen had been told by the RCMP
that he may have been the innocent recipient of some documents they
were interested in and which he turned over to them

Police did not name the ministerial staffers whose offices were
searched.