Angry in the Great White North

From the Vancouver Sun:

A Liberal MP has intervened on behalf of a would-be assassin trying to get a visa to visit his native India.

North Vancouver MP Don Bell confirmed he made the call to the Indian consul general two weeks ago to help Surrey resident Jaspal Singh Atwal, convicted in the attempted murder of a visiting Punjabi cabinet minister in 1986.

Bell said he was asked by fellow Liberal, Ujjal Dosanjh, MP for Vancouver South, who Atwal approached for assistance several months ago.

Bell assumed that Dosanjh was asking on behalf of a constituent. Bell knew that Dosanjh had a history with Atwal, but claims he knew nothing of the matter of an assassination, and presumably nothing of the attempted murder conviction:

But Bell said he thought Atwal was a constituent of Dosanjh's when he agreed to call the consul general.

''I got the impression that Ujjal was his MP. Who is his MP then?'' Bell asked during an interview with the Vancouver Sun.

Bell claimed he knew nothing about Atwal's conviction in the political assassination plot when he called the Vancouver consul general, and that Dosanjh had not mentioned it to him.

''The main thing I knew about were the charges involving Ujjal,'' Bell said. ''I didn't have the other background.''

Atwal's MP is Conservative Nina Grewal. She is the husband of former MP Gurmant Grewal. Gurmant Grewal and Dosanjh were, of course, key players in allegations of Paul Martin's former Liberal government offering inducements of cabinet posts to Conservative MPs to cross the floor.

Now what exactly is the history between Dosanjh and Atwal?

Dosanjh appears serene at taking a post that has devoured his predecessors. He is a man who experienced political beatings in his first two races for the British Columbia Legislature, as well as a brutal physical beating. In 1985, Dosanjh was repeatedly struck on the head with an iron rod in the parking lot outside his law office. The beating came after he had spoken out against Sikh extremism in the Indo-Canadian community.

Atwal was acquitted:

The charges are stayed after it is revealed that C.S.I.S. falsified an affidavit to obtain a wiretap warrant against one of the suspects.

A brutal beating, and now Dosanjh works to help Atwal get out of the country?

Dosanjh said he has no ill will against Atwal, despite telling a judge that Atwal was his assailant in a political attack in February 1985.

And what about this assassination charge?

May 25: 1986: Punjab's planning minister and a member of the moderate Akali Dal political party, Malkiat Singh Sidhu, is shot and seriously injured while visiting the vancouver [sic] area to attend a family wedding. Four members of the International Sikh Youth Federation (I.S.Y.F.), including Jaspal Singh Atwal, are convicted and awarded twenty-year sentences.

Atwal admitted to the National Parole Board that he was the gunman who fired several shots at Sidhu, two of which injured the man who was attending his nephew's wedding in B.C.

''You admit to and have accepted responsibility for your part in the offence and recognize that what you did is totally unacceptable to the Canadian community and constituted an act of political terrorism,'' say parole-board records obtained by the Vancouver Sun.

Sidhu was shot dead in India in 1991.

As for Atwal, he was paroled for his act of "political terrorism" in 1992.

He was able to go to India twice, but his full parole was revoked and his visa cancelled when he got into trouble yet again:

Atwal's visa to visit India was cancelled and his full parole revoked in 2002 after police identified him as a suspect in a drive-by shooting of his brother's house, a December 2002 parole decision states. Atwal was never charged with the shooting and his brother died unexpectedly.

Atwal, for his part, insists he is a model citizen, allegations of attempt fratricide notwithstanding:

''I know what I am and I know who I am. Thirty-six years I live in the country. I have nothing against anyone. I have a lot of good-citizenship awards and all kinds of that stuff,'' Atwal said.

All kinds of that stuff...

Enough stuff to impress Dosanjh to help the convicted terrorist who beat him with a pipe.

Don Bell strongly implies he would never have helped Atwal if Dosanjh had been more forthcoming about Atwal's terrorist background. Unfortunately for Don Bell, he is being tarred with a broad brush because of this. Indeed, the entire Liberal Party is being made to look dangerously stupid:

Balwant Singh Gill, president of Surrey's Guru Nanak temple, said he was shocked that the Liberals would be trying to intervene on behalf of Atwal.

''It is not acceptable. He is convicted in a serious case. Why are they phoning the consul general on his behalf?'' Gill said.

In today's environment, helping a man convicted of politically motivated crimes, a man the parole board called a terrorist, is not going to make you many friends. I bet Don Bell is furious. Maybe a few other MPs as well.

This could be dealt with as a caucus matter since it involves two sitting MPs of the same party. It will be interesting to see if Bell asks the federal Liberal caucus to take some action against Dosanjh as punishment for making a fellow Liberal MP look foolish and reckless, not to mention making the party look untrustworthy with regards to a subject as deadly serious as terrorism.

How can the Liberal Party claim to be a party Canadians can trust to deal with international terrorism when a senior MP is helping a convicted terrorist to travel overseas? Especially when that senior MP tries to trick another Liberal MP to do the actual work?

Did Dosanjh ask Don Bell to help because Dosanjh figured that since Bell isn't of Indian descent, he was not likely to be familiar with Atwal and his history? Was Dosanjh hoping he, Dosanjh, would not be tied to this?

As for Dosanjh, you have to wonder where his loyalties lay, and what his priorities are.

Update: Former Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal, husband of current MP Nina Grewal, shows up in this story:

Former Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal wrote a reference letter for a would-be assassin who recently sought the help of two Liberal MPs to get a visa to visit India, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

A copy of the letter for Surrey resident Jaspal Singh Atwal, dated Nov. 13, 2002, was obtained by The Sun.

Without disclosing that he had gone to bat for the failed killer, Grewal earlier this week criticized Liberal MPs Don Bell and Ujjal Dosanjh for intervening on Atwal's behalf.

Grewal's letter is on official House of Commons letterhead and was used by Atwal at a National Parole Board hearing on whether he should regain full parole despite the fact he was a suspect in a drive-by shooting at his brother's house a few months earlier.

To be fair to Grewal, this was a letter to a parole board, and not an attempt to get him a Visa:

He said he didn't know the letter was to be used at a parole hearing, but wrote it after Atwal's family came to him and said Atwal could not get out of jail for his son's wedding.

"I wrote it because his family was crying - out of compassion," Grewal said. "You are sometimes brought into a situation that you write a letter. But I didn't write a strong letter, I remember that."

Grewal admits he didn't do enough research on the matter. To his credit, though, Grewal says that Atwal approached him to help with the Visa problem, and the Grewal refused.

Unfortunately for Grewal, we don't have any evidence that this actually happened. And we still have the problem of this reference letter.

Interestingly, there is another link between Atwal and Grewal. Atwal is somehow part of an RCMP investigation into Grewal mishandling donor cheques:

Barj Dhahan, a Vancouver businessman, donated to Grewal's campaign expecting to get a tax receipt, but he never did. "I ended up saying that, you know, I think there's something fishy here."

Dhahan gave Grewal a cheque for $600 for his 2004 re-election campaign. He says Grewal asked him to make it out to him personally. Grewal deposited the cheque in January 2004, but not to his riding association or his party.

"All I know is the back of the cheque is endorsed by Mr. Grewal," Dhahan said. "He is the best person to know where this money went."

There are allegations being thrown around that Dhahan is an agent for Dosanjh, who is gunning for Grewal because of the tape controversy, and that this cheque thing is part of an elaborate revenge plot.

It's all very sordid.

But there is a funny bit to this addendum:

Atwal, whose MP is Grewal's wife Nina, said earlier that he felt he could not go to his MP for help with his visa because of his role as a complainant against Grewal.

So Atwal felt that since he was somehow mixed up in some sort of cheque cashing thing involving the husband of his MP, he could not go to his MP for help with his visa problems.

But he felt comfortable going to Ujjal Dosanjh for that help, even though Dosanjh identified Atwal as the man who whaled on him with a metal pipe.

Strange.

I should point out that the author of the Vancouver Sun article is Kim Bolan, author of Loss of Faith: How the Air India Bombers Got Away With Murder: