RCMP Commissioner Mike Duhem said the threat to public safety has been “significantly reduced” since the expulsion of six Indian diplomats last week.
“We can confirm from the various techniques we use in our regular investigations and community communications that the threat has decreased significantly,” Duhame said in an interview airing Sunday with CTV Question Period host Vassy. told Kapelos. .
“If you look at some of the key players, as I said in my Thanksgiving Day statement, there are diplomats and consular officials involved, representing the Government of India on behalf of their agents. I was working as well,” Duhem said. “The Canadian government’s expulsion of these six people has had an impact on what we are seeing in the South Asian community.”
Asked whether there would be a re-emergence of public security threats as a result of the anticipated turnover of these diplomats, Kapelos said it was likely.
“From what I know, I think there are concerns.”
In two press conferences on Thanksgiving Monday, the RCMP and the federal government said Indian diplomats and consular personnel based in Canada engaged in covert operations related to serious criminal activity in this country, including murder and extortion. accused of doing so.
Foreign Minister Melanie Joly has gone a step further than the RCMP to say that Sanjay Kumar Verma, the exiled Indian High Commissioner to Canada, and five other Indian diplomats are Sikh separatist leaders and Canadian citizens. He is considered a person of interest in the murder of Hardeep Singh. Last summer in Niger, B.C.
Mr. Verma and his colleagues were labeled persons of disgrace because they refused to waive their diplomatic immunity against interrogation by law enforcement agencies.
“While there have always been separate investigations into the Indian government’s involvement in crimes in Canada, what we uncovered at that time was specific to that and is now before the courts. When asked by Kapelos whether there was the same connection between Nijjar’s murder and the exiled high commissioner, Douhem said:
“We are investigating diplomats and consular officials who have direct contact with the Indian government through their agents for various crimes, including murder, extortion and harassment, as I mentioned earlier,” he said. , did not reveal any direct connection to other public investigations. Nijjar incident.
Duhem said he had “never seen anything like this” in his 35 years of law enforcement, adding: “It’s actually a little surreal when you see this.”
“I can’t say that the threat will go away forever,” Duhem said. “Because like any other organized crime group or criminal sector, they reorganize and find other ways of doing things.”
Then-acting RCMP Commissioner Mike Duhem waits to appear before the House of Commons Affairs Committee in Ottawa on Tuesday, June 13, 2023. (Adrian Wilde/Canadian Press)
The RCMP commissioner noted that this problem is not unique to Canada, but rather that there are similar examples in other countries, namely the United States, and that a recently partially unsealed U.S. Department of Justice indictment has revealed that Indian government officials and , adding that it has been linked to a failed Canadian assassination attempt. Dual Canadian and US citizen living in New York City.
The indictment also links the alleged assassination attempt in the U.S. to Nijjar’s murder in Canada.
In an exclusive interview on CTV’s Question Period last week, Mr. Verma denied any involvement in Mr. Nijjar’s murder, insisting that Canada “has not shared a shred of evidence” with the Indian government.
Mr Duhame disputed the statement, saying law enforcement and political officials had tried “numerous times” to contact the Indian side to share evidence, to no avail, but ultimately agreed to a meeting in Singapore. He said that evidence had been submitted.
“Perhaps…the high commissioner did not see the evidence, but it was shared with Indian government officials,” Douhem said.
“How operatives worked for the Indian government here in Canada through diplomatic processes and official consulates, how the missions were conducted, how information flowed to the Indian government, to organized crime groups, And there was evidence that he had returned to Canada,” he said again.
Verma also said in an interview with CTV News that he chose not to waive his diplomatic immunity because he was unable to defend himself in cross-examination due to the lack of evidence presented.
But Duhem said if Verma had appeared for the interview, “evidence would have been shared.”
When asked about Mr. Verma’s criticism that the Canadian government is jeopardizing diplomatic relations with its largest trading partner on intelligence issues rather than evidence, Mr. Duhame said specifically that the RCMP He said he had filed a complaint.
“The evidence we have has been submitted to the prime minister, it has been submitted to the minister, it has been submitted to Canada’s Minister of International Affairs, and our evidence shows that the government has taken a position to expel six diplomats. “It’s powerful enough for us,” he said.
In the interview, Duhame also mentioned the impasse in the House of Commons over unredacted documents related to the now-defunct Canadian Sustainable Development Technology.
You can watch Duheme’s full interview in the video player at the top of this article.
