Bill Curry, Globe and Mail
Lloyd Hickman fits the loose description of the RCMP officer James Bartleman said “hissed” at him after he passed on a specific warning in 1985 that an Air India flight would be bombed later that week.
But the now-retired Mr. Hickman insisted Monday at the public inquiry into the terrorist bombing that he never had such a discussion with Mr. Bartleman, who was then a senior intelligence expert at External Affairs.
In the weeks before the June 23 bombing that killed 329 people, Mr. Hickman was an inspector working on security threats to VIPs and major events. He said Monday that he never came across a specific threat against Air India — delivered by Mr. Bartleman or anyone else.
Nor is he the hissing type, he added.
“I was a junior inspector at the time,” he told the inquiry. “If I would have acted in an unrespectful manner in any way, shape or form, it could have been a career-ending move for me. And I knew Mr. Bartleman. We had a good meeting the week before, which I think he was very pleased with.”
Mr. Bartleman, who is now Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, told the Air India inquiry earlier this month that he came across raw intelligence from the Communications Security Establishment while working as director of security and intelligence in the External Affairs Department that warned that an Air India flight leaving Canada would be bombed the weekend of June 22-23.
The CSE is an eavesdropping agency that records phone conversations and other messages and then distributes that material, particularly to Canada’s spy agency, CSIS, for analysis.
Mr. Bartleman said he recalled taking the document to a meeting at External Affairs headquarters on June 18 and asked to speak with the senior RCMP officer in the room.
“I knew they were down there, so I took the document, I put it in a secure folder, and I walked down to the meeting and I asked the senior officer present if I could speak to him privately,” Mr. Bartleman testified earlier.
When he raised the document with the officer, Mr. Bartleman said he was “hissed” at and told the RCMP was aware of the information.
The testimony contradicted the government of Canada’s long-held position that there was no specific warning about the bombing.
But Mr. Bartleman did not remember the name of the RCMP officer — it was an inspector or a superintendent, he recalled.
Mr. Hickman fits the description in some ways. He worked on VIP protection at the RCMP’s Ottawa headquarters and was the senior officer at a June 18, 1985, meeting at External Affairs about security threats against Indian targets in Canada.
Mr. Hickman, previously a sergeant, became an inspector in June, 1985. He noted Monday that he attended the June 18 meeting as a replacement for a superior.
Richard Muir, who was an RCMP superintendent who worked with Mr. Hickman on threat assessments, also told the inquiry this month that he never discussed threats to Air India with Mr. Bartleman before the bombing.
The federal government’s legal team at the Air India inquiry Monday launched an apparent attempt to discredit Mr. Bartleman’s testimony, suggesting his version of events does not match the rules for handling highly secret CSE intelligence files.
Department of Justice lawyer Charleen Brenzall was clearly skeptical of Mr. Bartleman’s story as she questioned Mr. Hickman.
Ms. Brenzall’s approach drew repeated objections from former Supreme Court of Canada judge John Major, the head of the public inquiry.
At Ms. Brenzall’s request, the former officer outlined the rules for treating CSE material.
“The information had to be closely held? Is that correct?” Ms. Brenzall asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Hickman replied.
“And can you walk around with that information?”
“Not to my knowledge,” said Mr. Hickman, who added that he never received raw data from the CSE.
As the government lawyer continued with questions that appeared to challenge Mr. Bartleman’s claims, Mr. Major demanded Ms. Brenzall explain their relevance.
“I think the relevance is pretty clear,” she said.
“If it was pretty clear, I wouldn’t have asked you,” Mr. Major shot back. “[Mr. Hickman] can’t answer how Mr. Bartleman saw something that he said he saw or didn’t see it. … This is pure speculation.”
Mr. Major also had terse words Monday for Soma Ray-Ellis, the lead counsel for Air India, the state-owned airline.
Ms. Ray-Ellis was quoted in the Toronto Star Monday as saying that Air India “is being unfairly scapegoated,” and being critical of the inquiry.
“For almost 22 years, Air India has been the face of public blame and responsibility. We don’t need an inquiry to further exploit that,” she was quoted as saying.
“That is hardly an appropriate statement for her to be making to a newspaper,” Mr. Major said in opening remarks Monday. “She is free to make that defence here at the commission and that is the purpose of the commission.”
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