February 11-18 -- The Five-Day Review Process

On February 11, Mr. Weaver was provided with a document entitled "Sharing of Information -- Fifth Working Day Review." This failed to set out any substantive reasons why Mr. Weaver was still being held in segregation. It stated only that he was placed in segregation on February 8 and that since his admission he had had access to legal and personal telephone calls, showers, meals and exercise, and that he continued to abide by the rules and regulations that govern administrative segregation. There was no mention of his interview with the RCMP in the presence of the IPSO, in which he had described his telephone conversation with Lama Margaret and his activities in F-7 afterwards as witnessed by other prisoners. This was all information known to the institution and relevant to Mr. Weaver's segregation review.

On February 15, Mr. Weaver was summoned to what he was told was his five-day segregation review. The Review Board was chaired by Unit Manager Callahan. Mr. Weaver stated that the written Sharing of Information did not contain information relating to the reasons for his continued segregation and that therefore he could not present a proper case to the Board. He was told that the five-day review would be postponed for a further three days in order to provide him with information from the IPSOs. He agreed to this postponement under protest, arguing that the information should have been provided to him on February 11 to enable his five-day review to proceed on the legally required date.

The information Mr. Weaver was promised on February 15 was not given to him until February 17. It came in the form of a memorandum from IPSO Hamer. Under the heading "Gist of Reasons for Continued Segregation," it stated the institution had received information from a number of sources, believed to be reliable, that indicated Mr. Weaver had been involved in the assault on Mr. Caziere. According to the memo, "The only variation in the provided information is your exact involvement whether directly as an assailant or indirectly as a party to the incident." The memo then set out information from several sources. Three of these were anonymous inmates. The first indicated that "while three inmates were in the process of assaulting inmate Caziere in Upper G Tier, you and another inmate were positioned at each end of the corridor keeping watch for the assailants." The second source "provided staff with the information that three inmates were involved in the assault and that you were one of the participants in this assault." The third source "provided staff with information about three inmates directly involved in the assault on inmate Caziere, specifically naming yourself as one of those involved." These three inmate sources are set out in the memo as if they corroborated each other to make a case against Mr. Weaver. What the memorandum failed to acknowledge was that one of these sources was inconsistent with the other two. If Mr. Weaver was directly involved in the assault, he could not have been positioned at the end of the corridor keeping watch. Both accounts cannot be "deemed reliable."

The fourth source identified in the memo was a staff report. The memo stated, "A staff member reported that at the time you were being picked up and taken to the Segregation Unit that you made the comment, 'you've got the wrong guy, there were more than three of us,' which gave the impression you were involved in the assault." Mr. Weaver remembered the conversation well, and the abbreviated version in Mr. Hamer's memo bore scant relationship to the full version. Far from incriminating Mr. Weaver, the conversation provided further support for his innocence. His recollection was as follows:

On Monday February 8 at approximately 12:30 p.m. I was in the shower in F-7 when three guards came in and told me that I was being returned to segregation. When I asked the reason none of them were sure. I said to CO-II Lomas, "You've got the wrong guy." He replied, "All three of you are going back." I said, "What do you mean, three of us? There were only two of us in Seg." Mr. Lomas replied, "No, there were three of you and Carter and Meir are already back in Seg. The only reason you didn't go with them is because you were in the shower." I asked, "Who is Meir?" Mr. Lomas said, "He was the third guy in Seg with you." I again said, "There wasn't three of us in Seg." He replied, "There is a third guy, Meir, maybe you didn't know he was down there because he was put in Seg after you and Carter." I responded, "I didn't know that three of us were there." (Affidavit of Gary Weaver, April 1, 1999)

As this exchange makes clear, the third prisoner allegedly involved in the assault on Mr. Caziere, Mr. Meir, was someone Mr. Weaver did not know, yet he is alleged to be one of Mr. Weaver's co-conspirators in a planned attack on Mr. Caziere.

The final source cited in the IPSO's memo offers double hearsay to substantiate the allegations against Mr. Weaver. The memo stated, "A staff member reported that his source who is considered reliable indicated that another inmate told him that there were going to be three assaults on different inmates and that you were involved in this action and that you had another inmate prepared to report to the IPSO that you were elsewhere at the time of the incident." In one fell swoop, this source claims to implicate Mr. Weaver not only in the assault on Mr. Caziere but in two other planned assaults, and it is also designed to invalidate his alibi. Yet in addition to referring to assaults that never happened, it fails to explain how not one but five other prisoners, one of whom had no relationship with Mr. Weaver apart from a telephone courtesy arrangement, corroborated Mr. Weaver's explanation of his whereabouts at the time of the incident.

The five-day review reconvened the next day, February 18. The Board was again chaired by Unit Manager Callahan. The following account by Mr. Weaver describes the manner in which the Board carried out its statutory mandate.

The Review Board informed me that I would be kept in segregation pending the outcome of the investigation into the assault. I protested that I was in no way involved in the assault on Mr. Caziere. I pointed out that the information in the IPSO report was both internally inconsistent and false. I stated that I had been fully honest and truthful in my dealings with the RCMP and with C.S.C. I requested a polygraph be administered in order to establish the truthfulness of my statements. My statements did not elicit any response from the Board. They simply repeated that I would be kept in segregation pending the outcome of the investigation. The Board did not address the issue of why it was believed that my presence in the population would interfere with the ongoing investigation. It was clear to me that the Segregation Review Board had made up its mind that I was to remain in segregation before the hearing even started. (Affidavit of Gary Weaver, April 1, 1999)

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