Rhéal Séguin

Once known as the queen of biathlon, two-time Olympic gold medalist Myriam Bédard testified yesterday in her own defence to meticulously deconstruct the charge of kidnapping her own daughter in violation of a custody order.

Dressed in a long black jacket, with her piercing blue eyes staring directly at the jury, Ms. Bédard explained that she never deprived her then 11-year-old daughter of talking to her father, Jean Paquet, throughout the more than two months she was away in the Washington area. Ms. Bédard attempted to show she had every intention of returning home.

She argued that between Oct. 2, 2006, and the day of her arrest, Dec. 22, 2006, her former husband never formally asked to see his daughter, contradicting Mr. Paquet's earlier testimony.

She also produced evidence designed to show that Mr. Paquet spent little time with his daughter since the couple divorced in 2002, and that during Ms. Bédard's controversial trip to Washington, there were 15 telephone calls between the daughter and her father. Ten of the calls were initiated by her daughter, she said.

"I encouraged her to call her father and told her that if she wanted to see him, I would put her on a plane. ... I never tried to deprive her from seeing her father," she said. "I asked her if her father wanted to see her on the weekend. She said no. I offered to put her on a plane to Montreal. I repeated the offer 20 times during the trip."

Based on telephone records from her cellular phone, Ms. Bédard calculated that Mr. Paquet spent close to 13 minutes on the phone with his daughter in October and another 15 minutes in November.

Ms. Bédard argued that she was constantly paying bills with her credit cards and that it was easy for anyone to trace her whereabouts.

Ms. Bédard went to Washington with her common-law spouse, Nima Mazhari, to denounce what the couple called "bureaucratic terrorism" in Canada and the "injustices" they believed were being perpetrated against them.

She insisted she had sole custody of the child at the time of the alleged abduction. She attempted to show that the father could not be deprived of custody rights he wasn't exercising, and produced a detailed tabulation of the days, hours and minutes Mr. Paquet spent with his daughter.

For instance, between February 2, 2007, when she regained full custody of her daughter after being released on bail in early January, until Aug. 31, 2007, Ms. Bédard said that Mr. Paquet spent "a total of 10 hours, 10 days and 43 minutes with his daughter." In 2006, she said Mr. Paquet spent 16 hours, nine hours and 21 minutes with his daughter.

Ms. Bédard denied receiving e-mails from Mr. Paquet that he produced in court this week, in which he demanded to see his daughter. She also denied ever threatening Mr. Paquet during a telephone conversation in which Ms. Bédard allegedly told her ex-husband "if you want trouble, you'll get it."

"It's impossible that I would ever have said something like that," Ms. Bédard testified. "I've always tried to be on good terms."

She explained that when she filed applications for a new passport for her daughter in May, 2006, she told Mr. Paquet that she was planning to travel to Austria, Russia and the United States with their daughter.

She said at first Mr. Paquet hesitated to sign the passport documents, fearing that Ms. Bédard would take his daughter to Iran, the country from which Mr. Mazhari had immigrated. But he signed the documents when told that Mr. Mazhari could never return to Iran.

"He's been a political refugee in this country for 22 years," she said. "He wouldn't get beyond the border. They would shoot him on sight ... he opposes the Islamic regime in Iran."

Mr. Mazhari, who was convicted in June of art theft, has been an enigmatic figure throughout the trial, convinced that the couple was the target of a harassment campaign.

Ms. Bédard corroborated Mr. Mazhari's testimony, saying that the couple went to the offices of Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington the moment they learned an arrest warrant had been issued against Ms. Bédard.

Defence and prosecution lawyers are expected to complete closing arguments no later than tomorrow. The six-man, six-woman jury would then likely render a verdict next week.

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