Dziekanski perjury trial timeline frustrates mother
First Mountie not set to go on trial until late 2012
CBC News
Posted: Dec 26, 2011 7:45 AM ET
Last Updated: Dec 26, 2011 2:00 PM ET
In June, the B.C. Criminal Justice Branch announced perjury charges against, clockwise from top left, Const. Gerry Rundel, Const. Bill Bentley, Cpl. Monty Robinson and Const. Kwesi Millington in connection with their testimony at the Braidwood inquiry.
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The mother of Robert Dziekanski says delays in prosecuting the police officers involved in her son's death are prolonging her suffering.
The Polish man died after four Mounties used a Taser stun gun to subdue him at Vancouver International Airport in October 2007.
Last year, a public inquiry found much of the officers' testimony wasn't credible, but it will be up to two more years before the four stand trial for perjury.
Constables Bill Bentley, Kwesi Millington and Gerry Rundel, and Cpl. Benjamin (Monty) Robinson are facing the charges regarding their testimony during the inquiry.
Thomas Braidwood, the retired judge who headed the inquiry, described some of the Mounties' testimony as shameful and said they had made "deliberate misrepresentations for the purpose of justifying their action.”
That was 2010. It took another year for a special prosecutor to lay perjury charges.
Only last week were trial dates confirmed for all four officers.
Mother says 2-year wait 'is too long'
Each will be tried separately, the first next October, the last a year later, in 2013.
"Two years is too long to wait. I have to do something again," Dziekanski's mother, Zofia Cisowski, told CBC News.
Cisowski also said she has had no peace since her son's fatal confrontation with the RCMP.
David Eby, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said the delay doesn't serve anyone's interest.
"You've got the transcript from the inquiry. You've got the videotape from the incident. How is this a complicated or challenging matter? Why is it taking so long? I think those are questions we can appropriately ask," Eby said.
Darryl Davies, a criminology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, said the trial delays and the RCMP's handling of the case are appalling.
Davies told CBC News that new RCMP Commissioner Robert Paulson must deliver on his promise to change the direction of the force.
"If he doesn't address this issue, then he has failed from Day 1 from the get-go," Davies told CBC News.
Trial dates based on lawyers' schedules
Special prosecutor Richard Peck said the trial dates were set to fit the lawyers' schedules.
All four officers are pleading not guilty.
For the past several years, each officer has been on the payroll but deemed "not operational," a vague term the RCMP will only say means they are not involved in actual policing.
Further questions to several of the officers' lawyers went unanswered.
The Canadian government is paying the officers' legal bills.
With files from the CBC's Curt PetrovichShare Tools
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