- A missing Canadian soldier who vanished this summer is
a member of the army's elite JTF-2 special forces squad, and the military
is growing increasingly worried that the explosives expert has "gone
off the reservation."
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- Sergeant Monty Paisley, a 16-year veteran of the military,
and for the past six years a member of the Canadian Forces' secretive commando
unit, has been missing since July and investigators acknowledged yesterday
that they have few leads.
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- The 40-year-old is believed to have entered Thailand
three months ago for what was supposed to be a two-week vacation and has
not been seen since. "We don't know what happened but I know National
Defence wants him back," a Canadian official said. "He went AWOL."
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- Major James Simiana, a spokesman for JTF-2, confirmed
Sgt. Paisley was a member of the Canadian special forces unit and that
he served with it in Afghanistan last year helping to hunt down al-Qaeda
and Taliban holdouts around Kandahar.
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- He said Sgt. Paisley's specialized training and his service
in Afghanistan set off alarm bells within the Canadian Forces when he went
missing.
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- "That's absolutely fair to say," Maj. Simiana
said, but added that suspicions about the missing man turning renegade
"amounts to speculation and that's certainly not something that we'd
want to encourage."
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- Sgt. Paisley is not a top-level commando in JTF-2, Maj.
Simiana said, but is instead one of the specialists who support the unit.
"He is a JTF-2 explosives safety specialist. That's a position that
basically defines him as a 'supporter' as opposed to a special operations
assaulter," he said.
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- "There are several different levels of members of
the Joint Task Force-2 unit. Sgt. Paisley would have been a Level 2 supporter.
Anything beyond that, in terms of his capabilities or his special skills,
we're not in a position to [confirm]."
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- Captain Mark Giles, a spokesman with the military's National
Investigative Service, said investigators have been working quietly to
locate Sgt. Paisley since he failed to return from a two-week vacation.
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- "We're using all of our available resources, working
with police agencies, working with the family, but at this point we haven't
confirmed his whereabouts," he said. "This is something that
the National Investigative Service is looking at, obviously quite intensely."
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- So far, the military police have had little success.
"We're looking at all possibilities ... nothing's been ruled out and
nothing's been ruled in at this point."
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- "Has he changed sides?" one official said.
"We don't know."
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- A source in National Defence headquarters in Ottawa said
the military is also concerned that the missing sergeant, and his skills,
may have fallen into the wrong hands.
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- Capt. Giles said there is no indication of foul play
in the case and added military investigators have not yet determined for
certain Sgt. Paisley entered Thailand.
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- "Thailand is something that we're looking at ...
but I have no confirmation that he is in fact there," he said. "We
have a missing soldier ... we don't know what the reasons or circumstances
might be."
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- Maj. Simiana said there was nothing in the missing man's
work history or personal life to suggest a reason for his disappearance.
"Sgt. Paisley's service record has been outstanding, both in the broader
Canadian Forces and in his time as a supporting member at JTF-2,"
he said.
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- "To be honest, we have no idea why this situation
has arisen ... this very unfortunate incident is extremely out of character
for Sgt. Paisley.
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- "Frankly, until Sgt. Paisley is found and/or contacted,
it's impossible to determine why he went missing."
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- Canadian officials in Bangkok last week informed Thai
police about Sgt. Paisley's possible presence in the country in advance
of the high-security Asia-Pacific economic summit there.
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- They said he was not believed to be a threat to anyone,
although his visa had expired and he was possibly carrying a laptop computer
or notebook with bomb-making information.
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- "He is still in Thailand, but we don't know his
whereabouts," said Lieutenant-General Jum-pon Munmai, head of Thailand's
National Intelligence Agency.
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- He expressed concern that terrorists might take advantage
of his bombmaking information.
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- "We do not think that information in his computer
would be used to mount any incident, but in the long term it could be exploited,"
he said.
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- Canadian government officials confirmed Sgt. Paisley's
disappearance when the report was raised in a briefing with journalists
travelling with Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister, to the annual
leaders summit.
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- They did not, however, make public his links to JTF-2.
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- Maj. Simiana said the military is not yet releasing a
photograph of the missing sergeant, as is usual in missing persons cases,
because the identities of members of JTF-2 are a closely guarded secret.
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- "It's a matter of balancing normal investigative
procedures with the fact that he was a member of the JTF-2.... We're dealing
with a very unique situation," he said.
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- "This isn't your standard missing person."
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- cwattie@nationalpost.com; sbell@nationalpost.com
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Interactive Inc.,
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