Pubdate: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON) Copyright: 2005, Canoe Limited Partnership. Contact: http://torontosun.com/ Author: Ian Mcdougall, Courts Bureau MARTIN HIT TARGET? Drug Accused Tells of How He Turned Down $300,000 in Plot To Assassinate the Man Who Would Be PM BRAMPTON -- A contract on the life of then finance minister Paul Martin was being shopped around Toronto's underworld in 2003, a former police informant testified yesterday. Two contracts, worth up to $300,000, were offered, said accused cocaine trafficker Vincent Brown at an abuse of process hearing. Brown has applied to have his drug charges dropped because he claims the RCMP broke its word after he came forward with information about the assassination plan. "Someone hired me to assassinate Paul Martin," he told his lawyer, Sam Goldstein. "I turned the offer down. I felt I was being set up." The RCMP took the matter seriously enough to give Brown a polygraph test on May 27, 2003. Nine days later news reports surfaced that Martin's security had been increased. Replaced Chretien At the time Martin was still finance minister and a front-runner to replace outgoing prime minister Jean Chretien. A Canadian Press report from the time quotes an unnamed RCMP source who indicated they had information Martin's safety was at risk. Brown said the man who asked him if he would accept the contract was a "loanshark" named Augustine D'Souza. Brown said another person had been asked to fulfil the contract, but instead vanished with the money. "One was planned before and it failed," Brown said. "They had paid someone before. They needed a backup plan." Brown said he was contacted by D'Souza around Dec. 16, 2002. Two days later he was arrested on firearms charges -- which eventually died after a preliminary hearing. Brown was charged with drug offences after police completed project OPAN, a large scale investigation targeting the cocaine trade in the U.S., Central and South America. Under cross-examination by federal Crown Surinder Singh Aujla, Brown admitted he owed D'Souza about $200,000 because of a failed real estate deal. 'Which Paul Martin' Little else was said in court about D'Souza despite Brown's claims. But in a statement filed in court as an exhibit yesterday, Brown tells two officers more about the alleged deal. "I said how much money are we talking about, and he said, well, it's 65, 75 (thousand). I said come on Augie, that kind of money, he said no, 300, but I gotta make some money too." Then Brown asked who the target was. "He said, Paul Martin. So I said which Paul Martin? He said, the Paul Martin. So I said which Paul Martin? He said the minister Paul Martin." Aujla argued there was never a deal to grant Brown immunity for his information about the hit on Martin. He accused Brown of coming up with the assassination story so police would go after D'Souza. Brown said he believed D'Souza wanted Martin dead, and he believed the police when they told him they would protect him and grant him immunity. Aujla asked him why he didn't have, and didn't ask for, a written immunity offer from the national security and police officials who interviewed him. "Where would I keep it," Brown said, explaining he was in custody in Maplehurst at the time. "I would be killed before I got back to the cell." The hearing continues today. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake