Karlheinz Schreiber[1] (born 25 March 1934) is a German and Canadian citizen, an industrialist, lobbyist, fundraiser, arms dealer, businessman, and convicted criminal.
[2] Schreiber set up trust accounts in Alberta for wealthy Germans in the early 1980s; among the people he served was Franz Josef Strauss, who had been premier of Bavaria.
[citation needed] Mulroney sued the government of Canada for libel, and in early 1997 received a $2.1 million (CDN) settlement and an apology.
[citation needed] In October 2004, then Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler ordered Schreiber to surrender himself to German authorities.
[citation needed] On 31 October 2007, the CBC Television show The Fifth Estate broadcast a one-hour program on the Schreiber – Mulroney situation.
[full citation needed] The same day the Globe and Mail published a feature article on the relationship between Karlheinz Schreiber and Brian Mulroney; the stories revealed, for the first time, that Brian Mulroney had made a voluntary disclosure to Revenue Canada years after he had received envelopes of cash from Karlheinz Schreiber.
[citation needed] The Globe and Mail and CBC reporters, Greg McArthur and Harvey Cashore, had teamed up to conduct research together, each organization maintaining editorial control over their own stories.
[citation needed] Harper also announced that federal Conservative caucus members were to have nothing to do with Mulroney while the investigative process unfolded, and denied any personal dealings with Schreiber.
[citation needed] The day after, on 14 November 2007, a report on CBC.ca quoted expert opinion saying that Schreiber's potential extradition to Germany could be delayed further by the timing of the public inquiry.
[citation needed] Also on 14 November, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced that they would begin a review of these matters; the RCMP had originally investigated the situation starting in the late 1980s.
[full citation needed] On 21 November 2007, legal pundits interviewed on various Canadian network television news channels speculated that Schreiber would most likely be extradited during a clandestine "middle-of-the-night" series of flights from Toronto Island Airport,[This quote needs a citation] through the United States, and on to Germany, and that it would most likely happen within hours of a Supreme Court of Canada announcement that it will not hear Schreiber's final appeal.
Schreiber stated that if he testified, he wanted bail, to wear a business suit and not his prison jumpsuit, and would like time to study his files which were stored at his house in Ottawa.
In the House of Commons, Szabo reminded Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson that although Schreiber was in a provincial jail, he was held there under a federal warrant.
[11] Later, on 28 November, House of Commons legal counsel Rob Walsh expressed his disagreement with Nicholson's opinion, stating "the Minister could facilitate this process in my view."
In an interview with CBC, Schreiber, who has not been charged with or convicted of any crime in Canada, said that the matter is "the biggest political justice scandal in Canadian history."
On 30 November, Ontario Superior Court was set to hear an appeal from Schreiber on further delaying his extradition to Germany, which could have taken place as soon as the following day, 1 December.
[13][full citation needed] The next morning, 29 November, he arrived at the House of Commons, where he was given a room for personal use, and to review his documents (which he was able to retrieve from his Ottawa home), prior to his testimony before the Ethics Committee.
He stated that the $300,000, paid in three cash payments to Mulroney in 1993 and 1994, came from a Swiss Bank account, where he had deposited the 'success fees' which Schreiber had earned in commissions for his work as a lobbyist, from successful contracts with Airbus, MBB, and Thyssen in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
[20] Three of the four GCI principal partners at that time – Frank Moores, Gary Ouellet, and Gerald Doucet — had close ties to the PC Party and to Mulroney himself.
However, at 5 p.m. on the Friday before the August long weekend, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) served Schreiber at his Ottawa home with a summons requiring that he give himself up to Toronto Detention Centre by 5 p.m. the following Sunday.
Schreiber said he contributed $25,000 himself, and that the late Franz Josef Strauss, Airbus chairman and former Bavarian premier, added a similar amount.
[27] The money was used to transport and house many pro-Mulroney delegates, who voted against Clark, narrowly denying him sufficient support to continue as leader, despite a large lead over the governing Liberals, led by Pierre Trudeau, in the polls.
[15] Schreiber also stated that he transferred at least $5 million from his deals to the lobbying firm Government Consultants International, which had three senior Tories, Frank Moores, Gerald Doucet, and Gary Ouellet, as part of its management team; all three men had close ties to Mulroney.
[28] The Globe and Mail reported on 12 December that money from Strauss had also financed Moores to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars in the early 1980s, through purchase of some of his isolated rural land holdings in Newfoundland.
On 11 December, following his testimony before the Ethics Committee, Schreiber was interviewed by Peter Mansbridge, anchor of The National newscast on CBC Television.
Schreiber told Mansbridge that Franz Josef Strauss had a policy of helping to elect conservative-leaning governments around the world, by financing their campaigns, and that the Canadian case was just one example.
Mulroney did not tell Schreiber at that time that the Bear Head project, which had in 1988 received initial Cabinet approval from three ministers, as well as the Nova Scotia government, was cancelled in 1990.
[29] Special adviser David Lloyd Johnston delivered his report on the Mulroney – Schreiber matters to Prime Minister Harper, as scheduled on 11 January 2008.
Botting flew to Toronto, where he and Greenspan mounted a last-ditch effort to challenge the surrender order before the Ontario Superior Court.
After Schreiber's arrival in Germany, a German court in Augsburg took control of the proceedings and announced that it would hear only charges that he evaded income tax on C$45.6-million earned from negotiating the sale of helicopters, aircraft, and armaments.