TIM NAUMETZ
The Canadian Press
July 13, 2008 OTTAWA — A former FBI scientist hired by Stephen Harper's lawyer in the Prime Minister's $3.5-million lawsuit against the Liberal Party has contradicted two other experts who said an audiotape at the centre of the legal action was doctored, court documents reveal.
The résumé of the latest expert Mr. Harper's legal team consulted demonstrates the extent to which the Prime Minister is prepared to go in his claim the Liberals defamed him over allegations of bribery in offers the Tories made to late MP Chuck Cadman as a government confidence vote approached in 2005.
Former FBI special agent Bruce Koenig – who lists expert evidence about former U.S. president Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes and analysis of gun shots in the assassination of John F. Kennedy among his accomplishments – said more evidence is needed to judge the veracity and integrity of the disputed tape recording.
The Conservative party cited the opinions of the first two experts last month when Tory MP James Moore held a news conference to challenge B.C. author Tom Zytaruk's claim that Mr. Harper knew Tory operatives offered Mr. Cadman a financial incentive to help defeat the Liberal government in May, 2005.
The initial two experts, one from the United States and the other from Stratford, Ont., categorically ruled that an audiotape recording of an interview Mr. Zytaruk conducted with Mr. Harper in September, 2005, had been altered.
Mr. Harper's lawyer in the defamation suit, Richard Dearden, filed the expert evidence in early June in support of Mr. Harper's claim that the Liberal Party libelled him by suggesting he was aware of attempted bribery in the party's talks with Mr. Cadman.
One of the initial two experts, the head of Owl Investigations Inc. in Colonia, N.J., said he concluded “with scientific certainty that this tape has been edited and doctored to misrepresent the event as it actually occurred.”
That expert, Thomas Owen – who lists experience as a consultant to CSI on his credentials – claims to have verified the first recorded message from Osama bin Laden after the September, 2001, terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda as “probably authentic.”
The other, Alan Gough, a former TV producer who provided video and audio forensic services to the Toronto police force before becoming a “truth verification” expert, said Mr. Zytaruk's interview “is not a continuous recording of one conversation.”
Mr. Dearden filed both opinions, along with sworn affidavits, in the swelling Superior Court file of Mr. Harper's defamation claim, but added Mr. Koenig's analysis as he began attempts to get Mr. Zytaruk to provide his original version of the interview with Mr. Harper. The first two examinations done by Mr. Harper's experts were limited to copies of the tape recording Mr. Zytaruk had provided Mr. Dearden.
Mr. Koenig reported irregularities in the copy tape and portions where an earlier recording had been taped over, but concluded Mr. Zytaruk's original recording, his tape recorder and an external microphone if Mr. Zytaruk used one “are required to conduct a conclusive authenticity examination in a forensic audio laboratory.”
That kind of examination is required to “scientifically” determine whether the original information is truly original or has alterations, such as deletions or additions, Mr. Koenig said in the report he submitted with his own sworn affidavit.
In the fallout over the original Conservative release of expert evidence, Mr. Zytaruk conducted a series of news media interviews vigorously denying he had doctored the tape.
On the recording, Mr. Harper is heard saying he “understands” two of his top political operatives at the time, Doug Finley and Tom Flanagan, approached Mr. Cadman with an offer to replace “financial considerations” he might lose “due to an election.”
Mr. Zytaruk says Mr. Cadman's widow, Dona, told him after Mr. Cadman died in 2005 that Mr. Cadman told her shortly before the May confidence vote that two Conservatives had offered him a $1-million life insurance policy if he voted against the Liberals to help force an election.
Ms. Cadman has not directly denied that claim, although she has signed affidavits Mr. Dearden filed in the court case denying some other details of Mr. Zytaruk's version of the day he interviewed Mr. Harper in front of the Cadman home.
Mr. Harper has sworn to two affidavits denying Mr. Zytaruk's version of the events. Although he does not deny using the words “financial considerations,” he insists in the court filings he was talking about helping Mr. Cadman out with campaign expenses if he were to run as a Conservative.
Mr. Dearden has served notice to other lawyers in the case that he intends to file a motion in Ontario Superior Court seeking a summons for Mr. Zytaruk to testify when the first hearings in the case begin in Ottawa in September.
The Liberal Party has filed a statement of defence claiming Mr. Harper's lawsuit is an infringement of free political comment and violates the Charter of Rights as well as sections of the Constitution.
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