A lawyer for Toronto’s embattled mayor accused the city’s police chief of acting as “judge, jury and executioner” a day after police said they had obtained a copy of a long-rumored video that appears to show Rob Ford puffing on a crack pipe.
Ford’s lawyer Dennis Morris attacked Toronto Chief of Police Bill Blair on Friday for saying he was “disappointed” in the mayor at a news conference announcing the video had been recovered from a computer hard drive during an investigation of an associate of the mayor’s suspected of providing him with drugs.
“The chief said yesterday there is no evidence to charge him criminally in reference to this tape, so what the heck?” Morris said. “He wasn’t elected by the College of Cardinals and he shouldn’t be pontificating.”
Ford was elected mayor three years ago on a wave of discontent simmering in the city’s outlying suburbs. Since then he has survived an attempt to remove him from office on conflict-of-interest charges and has frequently made news for his increasingly erratic behavior.
Allegations Ford had been caught on video smoking crack first surfaced in May. Two reporters with the Toronto Star and one from the US Web site Gawker said they saw the video, but they did not obtain a copy.
Morris called on police to release the video saying it likely shows the mayor smoking something other than crack.
“Let’s see it,” Morris said. “You can call it a crack pipe or a pipe to smoke a, b, c or d, so let’s see it.”
“There is a lot of insinuation,” Morris said. “What was he doing here, what was he doing there. Well, if he was doing something illegal charge him.”
Police spokesman Mark Pugash said police do not have the authority to release the tape now that it is evidence before the courts. He said the courts will decide if and when the video of the mayor will be released.
Pugash said police have been seeking to question Ford. His lawyer has so far declined to bring him in.
Morris said on Friday that Ford would now be willing to view the tape, but would not answer questions.
Ford, his chief of staff and his brother Doug, a city councilor, hunkered down at the mayor’s mother’s house for a two-hour meeting on Friday amid growing calls that he step down.
All four major Toronto newspapers have called on Ford to resign. On Friday, the Toronto Board of Trade called on him to take a leave of absence.
Police said the video will come out when Ford’s associate and occasional driver, Alexander Lisi, goes to trial on drug and extortion charges. Lisi, who was released on bail on Friday, is accused of threatening two alleged gang members who had been trying to sell the video to the media for US$100,000.
Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly, a Ford ally, said he will meet with the mayor on Saturday and express the concerns of many councilors.
“I will hope that he’ll listen very carefully,” Kelly said. “I’m hoping that upon reflection that he’ll make the right decision.” Kelly declined to say whether he will ask Ford to resign.
Despite the pressure on Ford, municipal law makes no provision for his forced removal from office unless he is convicted and jailed for a criminal offence and voters may have the final word at next year’s election in which Ford has said he plans to run.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in