Schreiber says Elmer MacKay urged him to mend fences with Mulroney

Karlheinz Schreiber says former Conservative cabinet minister Elmer MacKay urged him to write a letter to Brian Mulroney to patch up their relationship so he could raise his extradition case with the prime minister, CBC News has learned.

Schreiber, who is set to testifybefore the federal ethics committee on Thursday about his affairs with Mulroney, claims MacKay told him that Mulroney was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the summer of 2006.

Schreiber said MacKay told him that if he wanted Mulroney to raise the issue of his extradition with Harper, he needed to make amends with Mulroney. Both Mulroney and Schreiber are long-time friends of MacKay, who is the father of current Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

CBC News has obtained a copy of an e-mail which appears to have been sent from Elmer MacKay's wife's address to Schreiber's wife in June of last year under the subject heading "proposed letter."

The e-mail contains verbatim portions of the actual letter Schreiber did send to Mulroney about three weeks later.

The letter apologizes for what it claimed was amisleading characterization of Schreiber's business dealings with Mulroney as depicted in a report by CBC's The Fifth Estate.The letter claims Schreiber was misled by the producers.

Schreiber said he sent the letter because MacKay suggested Mulroney might raise the issue of Schreiber's pending extradition with Harper.

But Harper has said Mulroney never raised the issue of Schreiber's extradition with him at that meeting.

When approached at his Lorne, N.S., home, MacKaywould not comment to CBC News about the e-mail.

Schreiber is currently suing Mulroney to recoup $300,000 in cash payments he handed out to the former Tory prime minister to enlist his help in establishing a pasta business and a light-armoured vehicle factory. Schreiber contends that Mulroney did not provide the services.

Schreiber alleges in an affidavit that the deal was struck two days before Mulroney left office as prime minister in 1993.

Schreiber also alleges in the affidavit that a Mulroney adviser asked Schreiber to transfer money in connection with Air Canada's 1988 purchase of Airbus planes to a Mulroney lawyer based in Switzerland.

None of the allegations against Mulroney has been proven in court, but they spurred Harper to call a public inquiry.