MAN GETS BAIL IN OFFICER'S DEATH

Suspect may be first to be released while charged with murdering
constable, lawyer says

MONTREAL -- A Montreal businessman awaiting trial for the first-degree
murder of a police officer has won bail after the court heard that the
accused thought he was the victim of a home invasion when drug
investigators burst into his house in a pre-dawn raid.

In what is believed to be a Canadian first, Mr. Justice Jean-Guy
Boilard of the Quebec Superior Court yesterday ordered the release on
bail of Basil Parasiris, 41, saying that it would not affect the
public trust in the justice system.

The court had heard that within seconds, Mr. Parasiris fired four
bullets from a legally registered 357-magnum while the police shot
back 14 times, including 10 shots toward the bedroom of his
14-year-old son.

Mr. Parasiris does not deny firing the fatal shots but says he was
acting in self defence.

In his decision, the judge noted that the five-officer team used a
battering ram to burst into the suburban home where Mr. Parasiris, his
wife and their two children were sleeping.

It was an entry "without a knock notice," Judge Boilard
said.

"That type of search has been the object of frequent criticisms," he
said, citing a string of court decisions dealing with the use of
excessive force in carrying out a search warrant.

The judge added that he didn't think "the Crown's evidence is beyond
challenge."

Mr. Parasiris exhaled heavily and his relatives burst into tears as
they listened to Judge Boilard order his release under conditions that
included posting a $200,000 bond, living with his father, surrendering
his passport and obeying a curfew.

The defence team said it had found no jurisprudence showing that
someone charged with an offence as serious as murdering a peace
officer had ever been released before while awaiting trial.

"But the circumstances were really exceptional in this matter,"
defence lawyer Frank Pappas said

"The accused is relieved. So is his family. Obviously it's not a time
to rejoice since there was the death of a person," Mr. Pappas added.
"Nobody is celebrating."

Laval police Constable Daniel Tessier, a 42-year-old father of two,
died during the raid that began around 5 a.m. on March 2.

Constable Tessier was part of the team that stormed the Parasiris
house in the Montreal suburb of Brossard, in a so-called "dynamic entry."

The officers, who wore dark clothes, yelled "police" and climbed to
the second floor. Constable Tessier was outside the master bedroom
when the door swung open and Mr. Parasiris fired, hitting him in the
jugular vein, the heart and a shoulder blade and wounding another constable.

Mr. Parasiris was in such a panic that he soiled his underwear, the
judge noted.

The other officers fired back, wounding Mr. Parasiris' wife and
mistakenly hitting Constable Tessier in a foot.

Police seized four loaded handguns, 13 cellular phones, four pagers
and $1,800 along with 0.3 grams of cocaine and 1.7 grams of marijuana
on the night tables in the master bedroom.

Mr. Parasiris has been charged with murder and attempted murder along
with firearms offences.