RCMP pressured to keep suspects’ transfer ‘hush’
B.C. residents sought in India ‘honour’ killing
VANCOUVER• The RCMP was under pressure to keep secret the federal government’s attempts last fall to extradite two B.C. residents to India where they are suspects in an alleged “honour” killing, according to court records.
RCMP officers received instructions to keep prisoners Surjit Singh Badesha and Malkit Kaur Sidhu “out of (public) view” and to bar them from making any calls as they were whisked from Vancouver to Toronto. One senior RCMP member remarked to colleagues that the clandestine operation, dubbed Project Sidesaddle, made her “a bit nervous as the hours tick by.” The pair’s lawyers — who succeeded at the last minute in halting their removal from Canada — say the internal RCMP communications, filed recently in the B.C. Court of Appeal, support their argument that Jody Wilson-Raybould, Canada’s justice minister, ignored due process and that the pair’s surrender order should be stayed. “The minister’s actions demonstrate a complete disregard for the due process of law and an intention on the part of the minister to obstruct justice,” claim the filings.
On Wednesday a Justice department spokesman referred the National Post to responses filed this week by the department’s lawyers stating that any further delays in extraditing the pair would have tarnished the integrity of the justice system and Canada’s international reputation. “Conveying Mr. Badesha and Ms. Sidhu to India immediately to stand trial for a brutal and notorious killing of a family member is not an abuse of process,” they wrote. A stay in proceedings is an extraordinary remedy to be granted only in the clearest of cases, they continued. “This is not that case.” Police in India theorize Badesha and his sister, Sidhu, both Canadian citizens, ordered the killing of Sidhu’s daughter, Jaswinder (“Jassi”) Kaur Sidhu, of Maple Ridge, B.C., after she secretly married Sukhwinder Singh Sidhu, a rickshaw driver, instead of a wealthier man who had been chosen for her. Men armed with hockey sticks and a sword attacked the couple in 2000 in the Punjab region of India. Jaswinder Sidhu’s body was found on the bank of a canal, her throat slit. Her husband was badly beaten.
A B.C. judge approved the extradition of her mother and uncle to India in 2014, but the decision was overturned on appeal. On Sept. 8, 2017, a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada ruled the extradition could proceed, citing assurances the federal government had received that the pair would not be mistreated.
Prior to that decision, lawyers for the suspects forwarded to the Justice department information they claimed was fresh evidence of mistreatment and torture of prisoners in India.
But the minister believed the new evidence was “weak, irrelevant and a reformulation of submissions previously considered,” court filings state.
On Sept. 20, 2017, Badesha and Sidhu were escorted out of jail and flown to Toronto. Heavily redacted RCMP emails, BlackBerry messages and handwritten notes reveal the government was keen to remove Badesha and Sidhu swiftly and discreetly as news of their possible transfer had already been “leaked” to media in India. On Sept. 13, RCMP Staff Sgt. Laura Livingstone sent a text on her BlackBerry: “I heard from DOJ . ... They continue to be panicked about leaking.”
Two days later, she sent an email to her colleagues: “DOJ still wants us to keep it hush; although, I have a feeling a lot of people in India are aware! But, we’ll keep up our end.”
On Sept. 19, 2017, RCMP Sgt. Troy Mechan emailed colleagues to say the transfer needed to be “as seamless and discreet as possible.” “This is a high profile extradition with significant political pressures from many interested parties. The more we can keep our two prisoners out of view from the general public, in secure areas and avoiding/bypassing security the better.” The next morning, Sept. 20, Mechan advised officers escorting the pair: “Ottawa wanted me to remind the pick up/transport team that no phone calls are permitted by the prisoners.” Lawyers for the suspects learned that day through “family members, rumours and online publications” that they might be on their way to India and sought clarification from Ottawa. Mechan got a call from Janet Henchey, director general and senior general counsel at Justice Canada. “Counsel for Sidhu and Badesha asking to speak to police re: well being of clients. Not given notification of removal from institutions,” the sergeant’s notes say. “Advised not to answer my phone from 604.”
A short time later, Mechan advised the team escorting Badesha and Sidhu to Toronto “not to answer calls when they land.”
A couple hours later, Henchey called back to say the suspects’ lawyers had filed an after-hours application to the B.C. appeal court for a judicial review. The next leg of the trip to India was off. On the morning of Sept. 22, as RCMP prepared to bring Badesha and Sidhu back to B.C., they got approval to let the prisoners talk to their lawyers.
“I was thinking it might save you a lot of questioning if you just put them on the phone to their lawyers, if they want,” Livingstone told Mechan.
Those lawyers, Michael Klein and Greg DelBigio, are seeking to cross-examine the RCMP officers as part of their bid to show that their clients’ rights were trampled as they were transferred to Ontario and convince the appeal court to stay the surrender order.
But justice lawyers say the suspects’ rights to counsel were not infringed.