OTTAWA - The RCMP is investigating a former Ottawa businessman on allegations of fraudulent bankruptcy, after he fled to Lebanon leaving an insolvent company with $10 million in debts behind him.

But Roland Eid, the former president of ICI Construction Management, said the investigation is merely an attempt to discredit him, after he broke off a decade-long agreement with CSIS to pass on construction blueprints of foreign embassies to the Canadian spy agency.

"It has nothing to do with money. ... It's all political," Eid said from his home in Lebanon. "They're trying to discredit me because they're afraid I'm going to come out with the truth."

Eid incorporated ICI Construction in 2005 and ran the company until December 2007. Then Eid abruptly left Canada for Lebanon, telling ICI employees that he was going on a family vacation to Florida. Just prior to the move, a total of $1.7 million was transferred out of ICI's account in Ottawa, and into Eid's personal account in Lebanon.

On Jan. 29, 2008, the company was declared bankrupt, with some $10 million in debts and unfinished construction projects.

In March 2008, bankruptcy trustee Kevin McCart of Surgeson Carson Associates asked the RCMP to investigate Eid's financial transactions.

According to an RCMP document, Eid "used corporate assets to pay for his lavish lifestyle."

Eid, who obtained the RCMP document in Lebanon and faxed it to the Citizen, denies all allegations of fraud and money laundering. He said he sold ICI Construction to comptroller Sebastien Dagenais before leaving Ottawa, and that the wire transfers were payments for that sale.

An "offer to purchase shares" between Eid and Dagenais does exist, but it was not accepted as a valid sales contract by bankruptcy authorities, in part because it was conditional upon $3 million in financing Dagenais never secured.

Eid said the real reason the RCMP is after him is because of his connection with CSIS.

He said he entered into an arrangement with CSIS whereby he would sell the agency blueprints of various embassy buildings where construction work was being done.

"I would get (the blueprints) from subcontractors, like electrical subcontractors. You give them $2,000 and they'll give you the drawings," Eid said. "They (CSIS) go on an operation, bugging the whole place with cameras and things. This is why the drawings are so important to them."

Later, when he set up his own company, CSIS helped him secure contracts, Eid said.

After the war between Israel and Lebanon in the summer of 2006, he said CSIS asked him to collect and pass on information that would help them gather intelligence about the Middle East. "I was given those three missions to do: The information about Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon. The drawings and construction of the Syrian embassy (in Ottawa). The drawings and renovation of the Lebanese embassy (in Ottawa)."

But Eid said passing on this information to CSIS would amount to betraying Arab countries, something that he would not do. So, he said, he instead slipped away to Lebanon.

"People should know the truth. Why should it be known that I ran away with $1.7 million, and that's not the truth?" he said. "I'm planning to go back to Canada and sue the government and tell my story."

A CSIS spokesperson said in an e-mail that it does not comment on operational matters or the identity of people with whom it has relationships.

Ottawa Citizen