SYSTEMATIC ROT UNCOVERED IN CANADA

Frank Ostrowski, a yellow envelope of newspaper clippings and his cane resting nearby, jabs his arthritis-twisted fingers in the air as he recounts the perceived slights against him. The police misinterpreted his statements, he insists. His lawyer screwed him over. A key witness double-crossed him, framing him for a drug-related hit he maintains he did not order. "Did I get a fair trial? The answer is no," the 56-year-old convicted killer says in an interview at the minimum-security Rockwood Institution north of Winnipeg.

In Ostrowski's 20 years in prison, the portly, thick-haired inmate has replayed the facts of his case in his head like a worn record whose every groove still obsesses him. But unlike some other lifers, it looks as though Ostrowski may have reason to be obsessed with his innocence. At an ongoing public inquiry into another dubious Manitoba murder conviction, that of James Driskell, evidence has emerged that Ostrowski may indeed have been railroaded.

Memos presented to the Driskell inquiry suggest the chief witness against Ostrowski at the "Rat Trial" of 1987 -- a cocaine mule whose testimony formed the hook on which the Crown hung its case -- received a deal for taking the stand, something he denied under cross-examination. In other words, an inquiry into one possible miscarriage of justice may have uncovered another. "I think it's fair to say on the basis of what we already know that Mr. Ostrowski is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. I'll take it that far," says James Lockyer, a well-known advocate for the wrongfully convicted and counsel to both Driskell and Ostrowski.

He introduced the Ostrowski memos to push the Driskell inquiry to consider a bigger issue: Namely, did police, a Winnipeg prosecutor and his superiors at Manitoba Justice make a habit of concocting secret deals with unsavoury witnesses? And if that is the case, are there others languishing in Canada's penitentiaries who deserve to have their cases re-examined?

Closing arguments in the Driskell inquiry begin Monday and, in his final submission, Mr. Lockyer is expected to repeat a request that the inquiry's commissioner order a review of cases led by the prosecutor in the Driskell case, George Dangerfield. Mr. Dangerfield already has one official wrongful conviction on his resume -- he was the Crown in two of Thomas Sophonow's three trials before DNA tests proved Mr. Sophonow did not kill 16-year-old Barbara Stoppel -- and he prosecuted four other disputed Manitoba murder cases, including Mr. Driskell's and Ostrowski's.

The Driskell and Ostrowski cases are not directly related. But there are similarities. Driskell was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1990 death of his friend Perry Dean Harder. The case was built largely on hair evidence that later proved faulty and on the testimony of a witness named Reath (Ray) Zanidean who, like the key witness in the Ostrowski case, received an undisclosed deal for taking the stand. If the Driskell inquiry's commissioner recommends a review of Mr. Dangerfield's cases, Ostrowski could finally see his case reopened.

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