[Dion]

VANCOUVER — The RCMP officer who stunned Robert Dziekanski with a Taser at Vancouver's airport lied at a public inquiry, a judge ruled Friday, marking the first guilty verdict of any kind related to the Polish immigrant's death.

Const. Kwesi Millington's perjury conviction comes more than seven years after Dziekanski's fatal confrontation with police, which stained the image of the RCMP and led to sweeping changes to how officers across the country use Tasers.

B.C. Supreme Court Judge William Ehrcke described Millington's explanations at the inquiry to be "simply preposterous" and he concluded the officer had a strong motive to lie.

"The discrepancies are all in one direction: that of exaggerating the threat posed by Mr. Dziekanski," Ehrcke said Friday, as Millington listened from the prisoner's dock.

"I find his explanation to be patently false."

For example, Millington initially said Dziekanski remained standing after the first jolt of the Taser and that the four officers wrestled the man to the ground. The video clearly shows Dziekanski fell to the floor on his own almost as soon as he was stunned.

Millington told the inquiry he thought Dziekanski was standing when he pulled the trigger a second time and he said he honestly believed the officers wrestled Dziekanski to the ground, though he acknowledged in the face of the video that he was mistaken.

Ehrcke concluded the officers must have spoken to each other before providing statements to homicide investigators, but all four Mounties denied that.

"This the only rationale inference available," Ehrcke said.

Dziekanski's mother, Zofia Cisowski, who sat quietly in the public gallery as the judge read the verdict, said Friday was the first time she has been happy since her son died.

"I am the happiest person all over the world," said Cisowski, who lives in Kamloops, where Dziekanski planned to move after immigrating to Canada.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/me...019/story.html