Yellowknife (Mar 31/06) - After throwing out a drug case involving 197 grams of crack cocaine, a territorial court judge had harsh words for the RCMP.

Edmonton resident Dion Adekat was one of three people arrested at the Yellowknife airport Oct. 30, 2005. Police seized 197 grams of cocaine and Adekat was charged with possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

“The police engaged in a closely-knit pattern of unconstitutional conduct,” Judge Robert Gorin said, citing a violation of Adekat’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a written reason for dismissing the charge against him.

According to information from court, Yellowknife RCMP received an anonymous tip last October that a man travelling from Edmonton by airplane was carrying a substantial amount of cocaine.

RCMP arrived at the Yellowknife Airport and approached the man. One officer discussed the possible contents of the suitcase with him and eventually asked if he could look inside the suitcase.

The suspect replied that he wished to speak to a lawyer first.

At that point, the officer arrested the man, believing he had grounds to search the bag because the suspect said he wanted to speak to a lawyer.

Gorin said he agreed with Crown counsel that the man’s Charter rights were violated and it was unreasonable for the search to be conducted without a warrant.

Gorin said the man was “exercising his legal rights” by refusing the officer’s request to search his luggage, and stating he wished to speak to a lawyer first.

“The exercise of the right to counsel cannot be the basis for the reasonable and probable grounds necessary for either an arrest of an accused or a search of his property,” Gorin said.

The reasonable and probable grounds required to made the arrest were not present, Gorin said.

“The accused Charter Rights guaranteed under sections 9, 10 and 8 were all violated within a very short time span.”

Gorin said as a whole, the violations were “serious” and “flagrant” and that the officer - who has participated in 25 to 30 investigations involving crack cocaine - should have known better.

“This is completely unacceptable and must not be condoned by the courts,” Gorin said of the officer’s violations.

Yellowknife RCMP Inspector Roch Fortin agreed with the judge’s decision, but said considering that police received 14,000 calls for service last year, it was only one of three complaints against the RCMP.

“This is an isolated incident and has been addressed.

“We have a new in-house counsel, Sadie Aitken from the Department of Justice, and we are doing training sessions on how to present evidence in court and how to review Charter argument or issues dealing with the ever changing law,” Fortin said.

“We are reviewing a transcript of the evidence which was presented in court and we will render a decision on if further training is required for the member himself."