MONTREAL -- A close friend and confidant has agreed to testify Wednesday at the coroner's inquest into the death of diplomat John Watkins, who died under RCMP questioning in a suburban hotel 17 years ago.
An RCMP report released at the inquest earlier said the Canadian ambassador to Moscow 1954-1956 had confided to his friend John Holmes that he was being interrogated by police in the fall of 1964, just before he died.
Holmes, Watkins' predecessor as charge d'affaires at the Moscow embassy, has agreed to appear before Coroner Stanislas Dery when the inquest resumes Wednesday after a two-week recess, crown prosecutor Jean-Pierre Bonin said.
Holmes may shed some light on the nature of the month-long investigation of Watkins by RCMP officers Henry Brandes and Leslie James Bennett. Watkins died in a Holiday Inn Hotel room during questioning Oct. 12, 1964.
The RCMP investigation was initiated after two Russian defectors said Watkins had been blackmailed by Soviet intelligence after being exposed as a homosexual.
Watkins, 62, died in a shadow of controversy after a distinguished career in the foreign service and a reputation as a renowned linguist who had translated the complete works of Honore de Balzac into English.
The investigation of Watkins began in Paris, where the retired diplomat was recovering from a heart attack in the home of former governor-general Jules Leger. The questioning continued in London and then shifted to the suburban Montreal hotel room where Watkins died.
So far, the inquest into his death has turned up repeated inconsistencies from a dozen witnesses. While some can be explained by a lapse of memory after 17 years, others raise intriguing questions.
A local police ambulance driver has testified that on the night of Watkins' death there were three other people in the hotel room - Brandes, Bennett and a third man from the External Affairs department whose name he had forgotten.
Brandes has denied the presence of a third person from external affairs. He has testified also he did not feel it was necessary at the time of the death to advise Montreal authorities that Watkins was a former diplomat.
The former RCMP officer said he stood by his statement on the death certificate that he was a 'friend of the deceased.' That was a factor in then-coroner Marcel Trahan's decision not to hold an inquest.
Brandes said the investigation of the death was turned over to local police, but local authorities have testified the hearse that picked up Watkins' body was not the truck or crew used normally by the police department.
Local officers testified also the RCMP investigators stumbled over their descriptions of the death. Local policemen have not mentioned the course of events that Brandes offered the inquiry: Watkins was happily reminiscing in the hotel room when he reached for a cigaret, gasped and died.
Watkins' heart condition has been discussed at length at the inquest but no witnesses have been asked directly whether Watkins died of a heart attack. Nor has there been any mention of his diabetic condition that required insulin injections.
