Â鶹ӰÊÓ

The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear an appeal from Karlheinz Schreiber regarding a lower court decision to extradite him to Germany -- where he is facing fraud and tax evasion charges.

Although the SCC won't hear the case, Schreiber's legal team struck a deal Wednesday with the Justice Department to keep him in Canada until after a public inquiry into his dealings with former prime minister Brian Mulroney.

In November, a panel of Ontario Court of Appeal judges decided not to intervene in the 2004 extradition order against Schreiber.

For the past few months, Schreiber has been out on bail but he was forced to return to jail ahead of the SCC decision.

"I would expect that his lawyer (Edward Greenspan) will try to make a case to have him released on bail," said Fife.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson would not comment Thursday on whether Schreiber would get bail, saying that it was a matter for the courts.

The minister did say that his decision to delay Schreiber's extradition will ensure "the public interest is served as Canadians will have the benefit of hearing Mr. Schreiber's testimony on Canadian soil.''

When pressing for the delay, Greenspan had also requested that Ottawa refuse to surrender Schreiber indefinitely.

Greenspan claimed that the Germans plan to introduce confidential tax records from Switzerland at Schreiber's trial, which he says is a violation of international law.

But, in a letter to Greenspan sent earlier this week, Nicholson rejected any notion that he had the authority to indefinitely stop the extradition, reports The Canadian Press.

Public inquiry

The House of Commons Ethics Committee, which has already been investigating the Mulroney-Schreiber affair, is expected to have a first draft of its final report ready by next Thursday, chairman Paul Szabo told Â鶹ӰÊÓnet.

The committee will then write up its recommendations and Szabo said he hopes to issue a report for Parliament by early April.

MPs had said the ethics committee hearings were an effort to get at matters that may not fall into the realm of a future inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. But some critics said the committee's hearings had turned into a "circus," and that members were more interested in politically embarrassing sitting and past politicians than they were at getting at facts.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the inquiry would be set up after the ethics committee had completed its work.

The ethics committee hearings began shortly after Harper announced last fall that he would appoint an independent third party to establish the parameters of a public inquiry.

Fife said the public inquiry may not be up and running until June, or even later.

Schreiber-Mulroney relationship

The relationship between Schreiber, Mulroney, and top-level Canadian politicians, goes back to the 1980s. At the time, Schreiber helped push through the sale of European-made Airbus jets to Air Canada. There have been unproven suggestions that Schreiber paid kickbacks to Canadian politicians in an effort to get the sale through.

The RCMP investigated links between Mulroney and Schreiber in the 1990s and found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

At one point, Mulroney sued the Government of Canada for libel and won a multi-million dollar settlement. During the suit Mulroney claimed that he barely knew Schreiber.

He has since admitted that he had business dealings with Schreiber after leaving the Prime Minister's Office. Mulroney has said he accepted cash payments for legitimate work from Schreiber on at least three occasions in hotel rooms in the U.S. and Canada.

Schreiber claims he gave Mulroney $300,000 in cash payments for his lobbying activities, including $100,000 in August, 1993 when Mulroney was still a Member of Parliament. He alleges Mulroney did not do any work for the money.

Mulroney has denied any wrongdoing, and none of the allegations against him has been proven in court.

Mulroney testified before the ethics committee in December that he was only paid $225,000 in cash and maintains he did legitimate work for Schreiber, including lobbying world leaders to buy the armored vehicles for UN peacekeeping missions.

Mulroney has admitted he did not pay tax on the $225,000 until 1999 when he learned Schreiber had been charged in Germany for bribery, fraud, forgery and tax evasion.

The former prime minister apologized before the committee for accepting cash payments, saying it was a "serious error in judgment."