A 43-year-old Indian, who was reportedly arrested in Canada for driving a tractor-trailer with cocaine worth $20-million on the street, is a free man.
Ontario Superior Court judge found that a police search of Avtar Singh Sandhu's tractor-trailer flagrantly violated his Charter rights.
Sandhu's arrest on February 7, 2007 drew attention, as it was Canada's largest drug bust.
Mike Dorken, an official at Truckdown Transport Terminal, had chased down Sandhu as he thought was acting suspiciously. Having tried to track the truck thrice, Dorken radioed in for help. Responding to the call, Jonas Leeman of the Ontario Ministry of Transport, joined the chase and eventually brought Sandhu's truck to a halt.
They then entered the trailer and found 'large brown packages' among a cargo of baby carrots.
Justice Quigley said Leeman was not empowered to stop and search a vehicle for any reason beyond possible Highway Traffic Act violations, and the police could not use the fact that he opened the trailer to justify a search without a warrant in a Criminal Code offence.
He called it 'disingenuous and astonishing to me that it could be suggested that an inspection power of this type -- granted for simple commercial vehicle regulatory purposes -- could be relied upon by officer Leeman (and the Halton police officers) as providing valid legal authority to permit the rear doors of the truck to be opened at a point in time when the focus of the investigation that was unfolding had changed dramatically from a simple regulatory one, to one involving potential Criminal Code infractions'.
Even though Justice Michael Quigley acknowledged that his verdict would certainly draw flak, he pointed out that 'the far greater potential risk to the long-term confidence of the public in our system of justice that would result from a decision to admit the impugned evidence in this case'.
