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Canada and Oil for food fugitive
Interpol-wanted Tongsun Park allowed on Panama flight at Canadian airport
By Judi McLeodThursday, January 12, 2006
Is Canada actively conspiring against the United States and the pursuit of American justice?
Fugitive Korean businessman Tongsun Park had been traveling from Canada to Panama when he was removed from a plane on a flight that stopped in Mexico City.
How was the Interpol-listed Park able to board a Canadian flight without intervention? How long had the FBI-hunted Tongsun Park been in Canada? By which means did he arrive in Canada? What business brought him here?
Interpol worldwide had circulated a warrant for Park's arrest, including the 260 nations recognized by the UN, of which Canada is certainly one.
Park, who slipped through Canadian authorities, was arrested in Houston on Friday. He was arrested only because the Mexican Government saw the Interpol warrant and sent him back to the United States.
Park, a key figure in the UN Oil-for-Food investigation, is charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent in the United States for Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
The Government of Mexico recognized the elusive Park as a fugitive on the Interpol Wanted List, but the Government of Canada did not?
Difficult to believe that Canada was still in the dark when it is public knowledge that the Canadian businessman Park gave $1 million of Saddam Hussein's money to is none other than Maurice Strong, longtime mentor of and advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.
From which Canadian city did Tongsun Park board a plane to Panama?
How long had Park been in Canada before leaving for Panama?
Did the Canadian Liberal government provide diplomatic immunity for Park while he was in Canada?
It boggles the imagination that the Canadian Government wouldn't know who Park is. Part of the charge against Park stems from his having given a $1 million cheque to Prime Minister Paul Martin advisor Maurice Strong, who invested it in a failing company in 1997-- while serving as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's adviser on UN reform.
Documents indicate that Martin was a 4.5% owner in the same company for which Strong accepted Saddam's one million dollars.
Park was arrested at Houston airport on Friday and has been denied bail as a "flight risk".
According to his lawyer, Randy Schaffer, Park never intended to travel to the United States.
"This guy is picked up in Mexico against his will and brought here," Schaffer told reporters at his client's bail hearing.
Canada has an embarrassing record in keeping would-be terrorists from crossing into the U.S. Algerian expatriate Ahmed Resssan, who planned to blow up the Los Angeles airport on 1999s Millennium eve, made it past the Canadian border only to be stopped by American border authorities.
Canada may now have another record in allowing fugitives from the law access to other countries.
Was this yet another Canadian government foul-up, or is there more to the story of the easy exit of the media-dubbed "Koreagate man" from Canada?
Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
