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From: Will Zuzak <zuzakw@bc.sympatico.ca> 

To: MInister Anne McLellan, Canadian Justice Minister <mclela@parl.gc.ca> 

Date: Wednesday, April 08, 1998 11:49 AM 

Subject: Corruption within the Justice Department 

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April 8, 1998

The Honourable Anne McLellan <Email: mclela@parl.gc.ca> 
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada 
Room 360, Justice Building
239 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H8

Dear Anne McLellan:

I have been interested in the operations of the Canadian Department of
Justice since the establishment of the Deschenes commission in the late
fall of 1984, with the subsequent passage of war crimes legislation, Bill
C-71, in August 1987. I followed the proceedings closely and wrote a
detailed Critique of the Deschenes Commission Report, as well as letters
of protest concerning Bill C-71. These were sent to various newspapers,
Parliamentarians and Justice Deschenes himself.

About the same time, my wife, Lily, became involved with the John
Demjanjuk case as head of the Charitable Committee in Aid of John
Demjanjuk�s Family, Montreal Branch. As such, we acquired an immense
amount of information and became intimately familiar with the machinations
of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) headed by Neal Sher at the
time.

Over fifty particularly relevant articles on these two subjects, which I
had originally posted on the Internet, are now archived at
http://soma.crl.mcmaster.ca/ukes/demjanjuk/ , with file names such as
deschene.005 and demanuk.011.

My letter, dated 16 August, 1992, to the International Association of
Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (archived as demanuk.007 at the above URL), who
tried to dissuade the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals from re-opening
the Demjanjuk case, summarizes my views on the OSI. The following two
paragraphs are of particular relevance: 

"The Office of Special Investigations (OSI) of the U.S. Department of
Justice does not possess any of the positive features you attribute to it.
There is ample evidence to support charges of "miscarriage of justice" and
"fraud". Even to accuse the OSI of "prosecutorial misconduct" and
"obstruction of justice" is too mild. What the OSI has done to John
Demjanjuk and his family is pure unadulterated evil. It is 100% certain
that the OSI had knowledge and/or documents in its possession indicating
that John Demjanjuk was not the guard Ivan Grozny before the
denaturalization trial in 1981. Yet, it conspired to conceal this evidence
during those proceedings, the subsequent extradition proceedings in 1985
and even the trial in Jerusalem in 1987.

"Rather than condoning the criminal actions of the OSI, one would have
hoped that the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists
would be at the forefront in demanding that perpetrators of this evil be
brought to justice. After people like Allan Ryan Jr., Neal Sher and Norman
Moscowitz have spent as many years in solitary confinement as John
Demjanjuk, then justice will have been served. And should Mr. Demjanjuk
die while still incarcerated in Israel, or as a result thereof, then they
should be charged with murder." 

Since that time, both the Sixth Circuit (17 November, 1993) and Judge Paul
Matia (20 February, 1998) have ruled that the OSI was guilty of
"prosecutorial misconduct that constituted fraud on the court" in
obtaining the 1986 extradition and the 1981 denaturalization of John
Demjanjuk.

Since its inception, the OSI has been using denaturalization and
deportation, which is a civil proceeding using lax rules of evidence, to
persecute their victims in the United States. This abrogation of justice
has been supported by the leading Jewish lobby groups in the United States
(AIPAC, WJC, JDL, Wiesenthal Centres, etc.) and in Canada (CJC, B'nai
Brith). Denaturalization and deportation has nothing to do with justice.
In fact, it is a blueprint for injustice. Justice can only be served in a
criminal court of law under rigorous rules of evidence in front of a jury
of 12 of the accused�s peers. In not one single case, that the OSI has
pursued, has justice been served.

In my opinion, the OSI has no redeeming features whatsoever. It is
blatantly racist in concept, composition and operation. It is a political
tool used by powerful Jewish lobbies to foster a distorted view of the
realities of World War II, to distract from the crimes against humanity
being perpetrated against Palestinians by the state of Israel and to
attempt to the provide cohesion to the various Jewish factions throughout
the world by promoting a general sense of victimization. The OSI has
shamelessly collaborated with the Soviet KGB and corrupted the U.S.
justice system by using KGB material without proper verification. Sadly,
the result of the criminal activities of the OSI has been to undermine the
confidence of Americans in their justice system, to promote anti-Jewish
feelings throughout the world and to tarnish the memory of the people who
died in the World War II Holocaust.

Of particular concern to Canadians is that the OSI (and Neal Sher, in
particular) has been attempting to subvert the Canadian justice system
since 1980, when Robert Kaplan was Solicitor General. During the Deschenes
Commission hearings (1984-87), the OSI was instrumental in influencing
Justice Deschenes and corrupting his Report. Although the Justice Minister
of the time, Raymond Hnatyshyn, trumpeted that the Mulroney government had
opted for a "Made in Canada� solution and that there would be no
�denaturalizations and deportations," the subsequent war crimes
legislation, in my opinion, was written in bad faith and is seriously
flawed. The structure and operations of the Canadian War Crimes Unit
(hereafter referred to as the Canadian-OSI) is modeled after its American
counterpart. The only criminal action, which was successfully launched,
was against Imre Finta, who was eventually acquitted by a 12-person jury.
In this case, justice was served. 

With the advent of the Liberal government in the fall of 1993 with Allan
Rock as Justice Minister, the Canadian-OSI switched its strategy to the
American model of denaturalization and deportation, claiming that they
could not subvert the Canadian criminal court system to convict their
chosen victims. Several articles documenting this �creeping corruption�
are archived at the McMaster URL under the mnemonic DESCROCK.

With your ascension to the position of Justice Minister, the situation
appears to have gotten decidedly worse. Bowing to well-orchestrated
political pressure from American and Canadian Jewish groups (and, perhaps,
following a secret hidden agenda of the Liberal government), the
Canadian-OSI has launched a flurry of cases under your auspices. The
ultimate insult was the hiring of Neal Sher as an "advisor". To me, this
is equivalent to hiring Goering or some prominent Nazi official to oversee
the prosecution of Jewish war criminals. 

Indeed, this letter to you has been triggered by a letter from Deputy
Minister of Justice, George Thomson to Eugene Harasymiw dated January 15,
1998, concerning the hiring of Neal Sher. First, let me summarize three
relevant meetings on the issue:

(1) On Thursday, November 13, 1997 in Edmonton, Anne McLellan, Paul
Vickery and a secretary (name?) of the Department of Justice met with
Eugene Harasymiw, Marco Levytsky and Taras Podilsky from the Ukrainian
community to discuss the hiring of Neal Sher and other issues. Mr. Vickery
seemed unaware that Neal Sher was implicated in the John Demjanjuk case.

(2) On Thursday, November 13, 1997 in Edmonton, Anne McLellan met with a
�Jewish organization� and promised increased action on war crimes issues
(as reported by Stephen Bindman , Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 14, 1997).

(3) On Friday, November 28, 1997 in Edmonton, Wesley Smart of the
Department of Justice initiated a meeting with Eugene Harasymiw to discuss
Neal Sher. Mr. Smart was obviously on a fishing expedition for
information.

In the first paragraph of his letter, Mr. Thomson refers to Mr.
Harasymiw�s letters of Sept. 21, and Nov. 28, 1997, and the two meetings
listed above. He admits that the Canadian-OSI did not "interview the
various people you subsequently referred us to" (Yoram Sheftel, Ed
Nishnic, etc.). [In retrospect, it is obvious that the meetings with Mr.
Harasymiw were held in bad faith. The Canadian-OSI had already decided to
hire Mr. Sher and had no intention of expending any effort to search for
information compromising Mr. Sher.] 

For the next eleven paragraphs, Mr. Thomson becomes an apologist for the
OSI, for Neal Sher and for the concept of "denaturalization and
deportation". He first admits that the OSI was, indeed, guilty of
prosecutorial misconduct in the John Demjanjuk case (para. 2), but then
claims they �acted in good faith� and "had not intentionally committed a
wrong" (para. 3). [I suggest Mr. Thomson read my Critique on Judge Thomas
Wiseman�s Report at
http://soma.crl.mcmaster.ca/ukes/demjanjuk/demanuk.011 ] 

Next (para. 4), Mr. Thomson repeats the OSI disinformation that if Mr.
Demjanjuk was not Ivan of Treblinka, then he must be guilty of some other
war crimes. He refers to the Trawniki ID card and other KGB documents as
"authentic". [The ruling of Judge Paul Matia on Feb. 20, 1998, restoring
Mr. Demjanjuk's American citizenship, specifically removes this
"authenticity".]

In paragraphs 5 to 7, Mr. Thomson refers to an irrelevant 1997 OSI case as
a praiseworthy example. [Was a specific criminal act proven in a criminal
court of law, with rigorous rules of evidence and a jury?] 

In paragraphs 8 to 10, Mr. Thomson whitewashes Mr. Sher's direct
culpability in the Demjanjuk affair (ignoring the fact that Mr. Sher was
directly responsible for the extradition proceedings in 1985-86), rejects
the charge that Mr. Sher is a "corruptor of justice" and praises him to
high heaven, such as to justify the Canadian-OSI hiring him.

The above views of the Deputy Minister of Justice, George Thomson, are
repugnant enough, but it is in the last two paragraphs 11 and 12,
attempting to justify denaturalization and deportation, that he
demonstrates that he has a particularly distorted view of what justice is
about:

"No principle of law of fairness requires the government to elect to use
the criminal law and to attempt to imprison people, if other laws and
procedures and different remedies can be equally invoked against them in
accordance with all the normal protections of Canadian law." 

The law does not need to be fair? and to be perceived to be fair? To Mr.
Thomson, justice is a game. If you can't get them one way, then get them
another. The end justifies the means. Winning is everything. 

No, Mr. Thomson, justice is not a game. It is not the imprisonment of the
accused. It is not the judge, the prosecutor or the defense attorney.
Neither is it the written statutes and precedents of the country. That is
just the superstructure. Justice is society judging the actions of one of
its members via 12 jurors. It is these jurors who must try to understand
the actions of the accused and to judge him according to their own
experiences and expectations. Finally, it is the accused recognizing that
he has transgressed against the norms of society and accepting the verdict
of the jurors and the sanctions imposed on him.

To me, denaturalization and deportation, whether employed against
natural-born or naturalized citizens, is a repugnant concept, which should
be banished from the face of the planet. It is particularly painful for
Ukrainians for two reasons. During the 74-year Soviet era in Ukraine, they
became intimately familiar with communist justice as they were deported by
the millions to Siberia by bureaucrats of Mr. Thomson�s ilk. Secondly, my
views on forcible repatriation can be expressed by the following excerpt
from the demanuk.004 file at the McMaster URL:

"As for lying on his visa application, Mr. Demjanjuk has consistently
stated that he falsified his place of birth and whereabouts during World
War II to avoid being forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union. Thousands
of refugees now living as American or Canadian citizens did likewise.
Indeed, if deception during the immigration process were the sole
criterion for denaturalization and deportation, a large fraction of all
immigrants, including Jewish ones, would be deported. The fault, my dear
Brutus, lies not with the refugees, but with the secret provisions of the
Yalta Agreement providing for their forcible repatriation by the Allied
armies to the tender mercies of Stalin. It is high time that the
governments of these Allied forces declare these provisions null and void
in the same way that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact has been repealed. This
should be followed by a sincere apology to the victims who were forcibly
repatriated to face death or incarceration."

The above three pages, Ms. McLellan, summarize my views on the war crimes
issue. To me, it is perfectly clear that the Canadian-OSI has become
corrupted in exactly the same manner as its American parent. What is not
clear is whether this is deliberate or due to incompetence? Is it directed
from the highest levels of political power within the Liberal Party and
Cabinet? Or does it arise from deep within the bureaucracy of the
Department of Justice and the Canadian-OSI? Perhaps, it is directed by
powerful internal and external lobby groups?

I was surprised to be informed that neither you nor Paul Vickery were
aware of the deep involvement of Neal Sher in the John Demjanjuk case. Was
this due to incompetence? Or was the information withheld from you by the
Canadian-OSI bureaucracy? To help clarify the matter, I would like to ask
if you are aware of the information listed below? If so, could you inform
me when you received this information and from whom? If not, could you ask
George Thomson and the rest of the Canadian-OSI personnel, if they were
aware of this information and if they have copies of it in their
possession?

(1) The existence and contents of the Demjanjuk files at
http://soma.crl.mcmaster.ca/ukes/demjanjuk/ , including Critiques of the
Deschenes Commission (deschene.005) and Wiseman�s Report (demanuk.011).

(2) Memos, reports and correspondence dating from 1980 to 1984 between OSI
personnel, including Neal Sher, and Canadian representatives concerning
the war crimes issue.

(3) Memos, reports and correspondence dating from 1980 to 1984 between
Neal Sher and other OSI personnel concerning the John Demjanjuk case. (4)
Memos, reports and correspondence concerning the January 1982 meeting in
Jerusalem between OSI personnel, including Neal Sher, and Israeli
officials to develop a collaborative working relationship preparing the
ground, legally and politically, for the extradition of John Demjanjuk to
Israel.

(5) Memos, reports, correspondence and meetings from 1985 to 1987 between
OSI personnel, including Neal Sher, and personnel of the Deschenes
Commission.

(6) Memos, reports and correspondence from 1985 to 1993 between Neal Sher
and the Israeli prosecution concerning the extradition, Jerusalem trial
and appeal of John Demjanjuk.

(7) The 1993 deposition of Neal Sher to Justice Thomas Wiseman concerning
the Demjanjuk case.

(8) The 1997 submission of Neal Sher to Judge Paul Matia concerning the
John Demjanjuk case.

(9) Were you aware that Neal Sher's involvement in the Artukovic case is
still under consideration by the U.S. judiciary? 

In addition to postal mail, I will attempt to send this message to you via
Email. Also, because the implications of a politicized, corrupt judiciary
are so horrendous for Canadian society, I will be distributing this letter
to a wider audience. 

Respectfully submitted,

Will Zuzak <zuzakw@bc.sympatico.ca>
2845 Allenby Way
Vernon, BC V1T 8R3

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What sort of truth is it that needs protection?  - Auberon Waugh  *
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The London Daily Telegraph, May 9, 1992                           *
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