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British Columbia premier under criminal investigation

By Allan Dowd

VANCOUVER, Aug 20 (Reuters) - A political firestorm erupted around British Columbia Premier Glen Clark on Friday, as authorities revealed he is under criminal investigation and released information about a police raid on his home.

The British Columbia Supreme Court refused Clark's request to quash information contained in a search warrant used by police for the raid in March, which was carried out as part of an investigation of casino licensing and alleged influence peddling.

According to the information released on Friday, a police informant had alleged Clark was offered -- but declined -- a bribe by a friend and neighbor, Dimitrios Pilarinos, who was seeking a license to build a small-stakes casino in a Vancouver suburb.

The warrant does not allege criminal activity by Clark, but Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh confirmed on Friday that Clark is under criminal investigation and that he told the premier of the probe earlier this week.

``I want to be absolutely clear...that it is not my intention in making these remarks to judge the premier's innocence or guilt,'' Dosanjh told reporters, reading from a prepared statement.

The premier's lawyer, David Gibbons, dismissed the information in the warrant application as "scurrilous gossip, echoing comments Clark's supporters have made since the raid occurred.

``The premier has done nothing wrong,'' Gibbons told CKNW Radio in Vancouver.

The court ruled on Friday it would not release the contents of wiretaps, which are believed to contain the most politically damaging evidence against Clark, who is already under pressure to resign as the premier of Canada's third most populous province because of its lagging economy.

Political observers said they expected Clark will be forced to step down. Clark, who has denied criminal wrong-doing, was reported to be meeting on Friday with officials of his New Democratic Party.

Clark, a former labor organizer who has been premier since 1996, was not available for comment on Friday, and his aides would not say where he was.

In his ruling on the search warrant, Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm dismissed arguments by Clark's attorney, who had sought to quash the warrant on the grounds that it was improperly obtained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was based on false information.

News organizations sought to publish the warrant and more than 100 pages of supporting information, a move opposed by Clark and the police on the grounds that it would harm the privacy of some of the people under investigation and potentially hurt the probe.

Dohm said it was important to release at least some of the information to maintain ``public confidence'' in the court system. Releasing the wiretaps could damage the privacy and legal rights of some individuals involved, Dohm ruled.

Information from the wiretaps about why police raided the Clark's home has been disclosed in the public court hearings about Clark's request, but news reporters who attended the sessions are barred from disclosing what they heard.

The information released Friday appears to dispute Clark's claims that he had no dealings with Pilarinos on the casino at the North Burnaby Inn.

The casino received conditional approval over the objections of local officials but was eventually rejected.

Critics said the group that proposed the casino should not even have been considered for a license because of allegations it was connected with the pornography business and that the hotel was frequented by known criminals.

The Vancouver headquarters of an Internet gambling company associated with members of the casino project, Starnet Communications International (OTC BB:SNMM - news), was raided by police on Friday in an unrelated criminal investigation.

Clark has acknowledged that Pilarinos, a construction contractor, built a deck on the premier's private Vancouver home. Blueprints for the deck were among the items seized by police in the March raid, according to documents.

The warrant to raid Clark's home was one of 14 issued in the investigation. Police also seized evidence from provincial offices and homes and businesses of people associated with the casino license application.

Clark's supporters contend the raid was politically motivated. They note police obtained some of their information via the opposition Liberal Party, and a television station was tipped that police officers were going to the premier's home.