Mountie Kwesi Millington sentenced to 30 months in jail for perjury

RCMP Const. Kwesi Millington, right, leaves court during a lunch break at his perjury trial in Vancouver, B.C., on Monday March 10, 2014.(Darryl Dyck / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The Mountie sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail for lying at a public inquiry says he’ll appeal the conviction.

Const. Kwesi Millington was one of four RCMP officers involved in the fatal Taser death of Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver International Airport in 2007.

Millington was found guilty for lying under oath for a testimony he gave at the Braidwood Inquiry about the death two years later.

Although he was convicted of a single charge, BC Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke said it included six instances of lying about key details into the Polish immigrant’s death.

Milllington’s lawyers had asked for a one-year conditional sentence but Crown prosecutors asked that he spend up to three years in custody.

In his sentencing decision Monday, Ehrcke said the officer’s perjury impaired the ability of the Braidwood Inquiry to answer key questions about Dziekanski’s death.

“Perjury undermines the very heart of the administration of justice,” he said.

“Perjury is a very serious offence and even more serious when committed by a police officer sworn to uphold the law.

Ehrcke told the court even though the Braidwood Inquiry wasn’t a criminal trial: “It was a solemn inquiry into the circumstances of the death of a human being.”

Zofia Dziekanski, Robert’s mother, told reporters outside court she was overcome with emotion the second the judge read out his decision.

“I start[ed] crying because I was waiting almost eight years for [the] judge’s decision about my son’s death and the lying to cover up,” she said.

“I respect [the] judge’s decision.”