Andrew Raven
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 16/04) - Almost 12 years ago, Doreen Hourie's husband Norman was killed when the railcar he was riding in struck a home-made explosive, planted 750 feet below the surface at Giant Mine.

Giant Mine bomber Roger Warren will testify in a civil suit next week.- NNSL file photo

Norman and eight other strike breaking miners died in the blast and now, nine years after being sentenced to 20 years in prison, the man responsible for their deaths is returning to Yellowknife.

Roger Warren is expected to testify April 19 in a civil suit launched by the Workers Compensation Board and the families of the nine miners killed in the explosion.

Hourie, who now lives in Vernon, B.C., says she may make the trip to Yellowknife to watch Warren's testimony.

"I want to see what he has to say," she said.

Hourie sat in on Warren's criminal trial in 1995 and the first part of the civil suit, which began last fall, but she says returning to Yellowknife is always difficult.

"I still have a hard time with it," she said.

"Whenever I go (back to B.C.), I feel like I'm leaving him behind," she says of her husband, who is buried in Yellowknife.

Media frenzy

Warren's return to Yellowknife is expected to be the most publicized event of the civil suit, which has included a who's who of the contentious labour dispute that provided the backdrop to the fatal bombing.

Officials at the NWT Department of Justice are gearing up for Warren's return, but for security reasons they aren't releasing details about when he will arrive or where he will be held.

The department has an agreement with Corrections Services Canada to house Warren during his stay in Yellowknife, said spokesperson Glen Rutland.

Warren could be held at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre, the RCMP detachment, or maybe the new North Slave Correctional Centre, which is currently empty.

There is no word yet on whether a special prisoner's box will be installed in the courtroom -- itself specially constructed for the massive civil suit -- for Warren's testimony.

And although officials declined to comment on courtroom security, it is expected to be heavier than last month when Peggy Witte, former president of Royal Oak Ventures took the stand. At that time, three sheriffs were stationed at the courthouse, located on the fifth floor of the Yellowknife Centre.

The cost of Warren's stay will be covered by the Worker's Compensation Board, which launched the lawsuit to recover some of the money already paid out to the families of the nine miners killed in the blast.

Lawyers claim a host of defendants -- including Royal Oak, the company that owned Giant in 1992, Witte and the territorial government -- were negligent in allowing Warren to sneak into the mine and plant the fatal bomb.

They're seeking more than $14 million in damages.

Warren is also named as a defendant in the suit, but it's believed that he has little savings.

Expectations

It's expected lawyers for the plaintiffs will ask Warren about how he gained access to the mine and what security measures were in place at the time of the bitter strike.

After years of denying his role in the murders, Warren admitted to officials at Manitoba's Stony Mountain Penitentiary in 2002 that he planted the bomb, fully expecting to kill replacement workers.

"I did it, all by myself," said a teary-eyed Warren in a videotaped confession.

"I had no feelings for the people at the time. It was pure animosity. Whoever happened to go by there... that would be the end of them."

But while justice officials gear up for Warren's return, former city councillor and mayor Dave Lovell doesn't think the general public has much interest in the homecoming.

"There was a lot of shock and anger (after the fatal bombing)," said Lovell, who was a city councillor in charge of public safety in 1992.

"Whole lives were changed by what happened, but that was more than 10 years ago and a lot of those people have left town. It's funny because time doesn't change what happened, but it softens some of the rough edges."