Lawyer details shoving, screaming at Driskell inquiry

A lawyerfor a key witness against James Driskell says he was shoved into a room by police and screamed at by a Crown attorney when he told his client not to talk to police, an inquiryinto Driskell's wrongful conviction was told.

Winnipeg lawyer David Kovnats wasRay Zanidean's lawyer at the time of Driskell's trial some 15 years ago.

Driskell spent 12 years behind bars for a 1990 murder before the federal justice minister quashed his conviction last year. The inquiry, in Winnipeg,has been exploring the conduct of the Crown and police in the treatment of Zanidean, who was an important and controversial witness at Driskell's trial.

Kovnats told the inquiry on Thursday that in 1991, he tried to negotiate a witness protection deal for Zanidean, in exchange forthe man'stestimony against Driskell.

Kovnats said he was just trying to make sure the Crown was going to live up to promises it had made to Zanidean, including immunity for an arson Zanidean was implicated in in Saskatchewan.

But Kovnats testified that the negotiations, which lasted for months, turned sour after he told his client that he did not have to talk to anyone but the trial judge.

Only 16 days before Zanidean was to take the stand, Kovnats got into a heated argument with Crown prosecutor George Dangerfield, the inquiry was told.

Kovnats said there was yelling and screaming. Then police officers showed up.

Locked in a room; called for help

"I'm grabbed, and I'm thrown into a room," Kovnats told the inquiry. "I'm trying to represent a client and I'm getting into this position.

"I was physically thrown into a room, all right? And then they locked the door."

Once locked in the room, Kovnats said he tried to call another lawyer for help.

"I don't know how long I was in the room," he said. "Enough time for me to take a table over, turn it, put it under the doorknob so they couldn't get in at me, and phone for help."

Although Kovnats could not identify any of the police officers involved, he said Dangerfield later apologized to him.

The inquiry has heard that Zanidean demanded and received tens of thousands of dollars and other perks in exchange for his questionable testimony, while threatening to change his story or recant altogether. Driskell's lawyers and the jury at his trial were not made aware of the deals, the inquiry was told.

Driskell's first-degree murder conviction for the 1990 killing of Perry Dean Harder was quashed in 2005.

The justice minister cited several reasons for his decision, including new DNA evidence that showed hairs found in Driskell's van did not belong to the victim as the Crown argued at trial as well as problems with key witnesses and a lack of disclosure of information that could have helped Driskell's defence.

The Manitoba government then stayed the charges against Driskell, which keeps him out of prison but does not officially exonerate him.

The inquiry is probing the role of police, the actions of the Crown and questions of disclosure in the case. The commissioner has also been asked to determine when someone has met the threshold to be declared factually innocent or wrongly convicted.