The Legislature Raids

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The Globe and Mail. By Mark Hume. December 1, 2008 (Recommended)

... Despite the delay, and the seemingly endless legal wrangling that has gone on throughout the pretrial period, the prosecution of Dave Basi and Bobby Virk still looks as though it will proceed.

Eventually the public will learn, through testimony in open court, just what the police discovered when the suspected drug dealers they were tracking led them to Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk.

And then to the doors of the provincial legislature, which was raided in December of 2003.

The two former Liberal ministerial aides are accused of corruption, fraud, breach of trust and money laundering, related to the alleged selling of government information tied to the $1-billion sale of B.C. Rail. Aneal Basi, a former government communications officer and Dave Basi's cousin, faces charges of money laundering.

The defence strategy, which is to portray the accused as mere pawns of the government, not maverick, ministerial aides who acted on their own, will give the public an unprecedented look into the inner workings of the Liberal Party.

Already the defence has obtained about 4,000 documents, totalling more than 300,000 pages, which include cabinet records, internal e-mails and wiretap transcripts.

Mr. Basi and Mr. Virk, it should be remembered, were two of the hottest political operatives in the provincial capital at the time. They talked to everybody who was anybody in government, in the media and within the Liberal Party. They chatted daily to lobbyists, political strategists and top people in Premier Gordon Campbell's office.

And sooner or later, all of that stuff is going to be revealed in court as lawyers dissect the B.C. Rail privatization deal.

It's going to be a long wait, but it will be worth it. {Snip} ...

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