“When you have the FBI involved, it makes you feel comfortable,” Maryclaire Wilhelm, who attended a protest rally in support of Dr. Dirk W. Witter, Ontario’s former chief pathologist, said Tuesday after hearing details of the recent raid of his office. “It’s got to be closure.”
In March, Dr. Witter told the Queen’s Park-hired Innocence Project that he had never seen any evidence suggesting that toxicology experts of his acquaintance told the Ontario Court of Appeal that their client, Charles Martel, died of cyanide poisoning. (The Innocence Project has said it submitted witnesses to the appellate court who claimed Dr. Witter shared that information with them after the hearings were done.)
Then on Monday, the Ontario’s police and OPP executed a search warrant at Dr. Witter’s office.
Dr. Witter’s attorney said he was not officially summoned to testify about the circumstances of Martel’s death, but the requisitions for such testify were given by lawyers representing the victims.
“My client, as a general matter, told the Innocence Project what he was told,” Sean Cheeseman, the Ontario’s attorney for Dr. Witter, said on Tuesday in response to media inquiries.
Ontario’s Minister of Health, Eric Hoskins, had earlier said in a statement, “I believe in absolute transparency.”
But on Tuesday, former Ontario deputy justice minister, Robert Johnston, said that Dr. Witter had been instructed to testify.
“It’s legally a lie to say that he didn’t give an interview to the Innocence Project,” Mr. Johnston said in an interview. “[The police] are the ones who brought a witness who claims Dr. Witter told him.”