Thursday, February 01, 2007

What Secrets He Might Tell


Karlheinz Schreiber, the man who may know all about the Airbus scandal, is one step closer to an extradition flight to his native Germany.

The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected Schreiber's application to appeal his extradition order. German prosecutors want him to stand trial for tax evasion, bribery and being an accessory to fraud. The German charges relate to the sale of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

In a delaying action, Schreiber is also appealing a refusal by then Justice Minister Vic Toews to reconsider the order.

In a revelation that really went nowhere, Schreiber acknowledged to CBC and the Globe and Mail that "grease money" he got from Airbus for the sale of jetliners to Air Canada was the source of three, $100,000 cash payments he made to Brian Mulroney.

When Mulroney sued the Canadian government he gave sworn evidence that he'd never received anything from Schreiber, hardly knew the man. On the strength of Mulroney's sworn statements the Canadian government folded its defence, settled Mulroney's lawsuit and gave him an apology.

Later, when confronted with evidence about the payments, Mulroney said the money was a "retainer" for legal services. Around that time he also decided he'd better pay some taxes on that retainer.

The Harper government has shown no interest in revisiting the Mulroney Airbus suit.

1 comment:

canuckistanian said...

kinsella has a good article about this. muldoon needs to be held accountable for this. accordingly, any liberal involved in leaking the decision on income trusts to bay street (cough, cough; scott brison) needs to be held to account for their actions.