DRUG MIDDLEMAN LOSES LAWSUIT

Sued RCMP For Entrapment. Addict Claims He Was Forced To Participate
In Thailand Drug Sting Set Up By Mounties

A former drug addict who claimed he was used by the RCMP to set up a
drug deal in Thailand and then was sentenced to life in prison for
his deed has lost his $47.5-million lawsuit against the Mounties.

Not only did Alain Olivier wait too long to sue, he didn't prove he
was a victim of RCMP entrapment, Superior Court Justice Michel Caron
said in a 48-page judgment issued yesterday.

Olivier was arrested in Thailand in a 1989 botched drug deal that the
RCMP had orchestrated, using him as the contact person for the Thai supplier.

As the exchange was going on, Thai police intervened and an RCMP
officer was killed. Olivier escaped the death penalty by agreeing to
plead guilty to several drug charges, and served 81/2 years in a Thai
jail before being transferred back to Quebec to serve his time. He's
been released and is on parole until 2029.

Olivier's lawyer, Francois Audet, said he found Caron's decision
"unbelievable" and "absurd" and said it was highly likely they would appeal.

"Here's a guy staying in a 30-by-50-foot prison cell he shares with
40 to 150 other prisoners, sleeping on a cement floor, and he's
supposed to file a lawsuit?" Audet said in an interview.

"How can you put the onus on someone who doesn't think he's going to survive?

"Filing a lawsuit is a luxury. Surviving is a necessity."

Olivier claims the RCMP "relentlessly hounded him through ... threats
and intimidation" for 20 months in the late 1980s so he would take
part in the mission, known as Operation Deception.

The Drummondville resident, who had no previous criminal record,
testified he finally obliged because he was afraid he'd be killed.

But throughout the 18-month police operation, the judge said, Olivier
didn't act like someone who was being threatened or lived in fear.

In December 1988, Caron noted, Olivier travelled to Thailand to pick
up a sample of heroin for the police. When he returned to Canada,
Olivier received a portion of it for his personal use.

"This trip ... is incompatible with the behaviour of someone living
in fear and under threat," Caron wrote.

Olivier didn't prove his allegations that the RCMP modified their
notes or tore pages from their notebooks to hide the truth about the
investigation into Olivier's case, the judge added.

Audet said the judge ignored several key facts in the case, including
an undercover officer's telling Olivier several times in Thailand
there'd be a lot of unhappy people if the operation failed.

"In my opinion, if that's not entrapment, I don't know what is," Audet said.