VANCOUVER—The RCMP who stunned Robert Dziekanski with a Taser at Vancouver’s airport lied at a public inquiry, a judge ruled Friday, marking the first guilty verdict of any kind related to the Polish immigrant’s death.

Const. Kwesi Millington’s perjury conviction comes more than seven years after Dziekanski’s fatal confrontation with police, which stained the image of the RCMP and led to sweeping changes to how officers across the country use Tasers.

Millington was among four Mounties summoned to the airport in October 2007 after Dziekanski, who spoke no English, started throwing furniture in the international terminal. Millington fired his Taser less than a minute after arriving.

The officers, who were never charged for their actions that night, were compelled to explain what happened at a subsequent public inquiry. All four were later charged with perjury.

The Crown alleged they lied when they attempted to reconcile their initial accounts of what happened with an amateur video released later. Prosecutors accused the officers of colluding on a story to tell investigators and then lying at the inquiry to cover it up.

On Friday, B.C. Supreme Court Judge William Ehrcke described Millington’s explanations at the inquiry to be “simply preposterous” and he concluded the officer had a strong motive to lie.

“The discrepancies are all in one direction: that of exaggerating the threat posed by Mr. Dziekanski,” Ehrcke said. “I find his explanation to be patently false.”

For example, Millington initially said Dziekanski remained standing after the first jolt of the Taser and that the four officers wrestled the man to the ground. The video clearly shows Dziekanski fell to the floor on his own almost as soon as he was stunned.

Millington told the inquiry he thought Dziekanski was standing when he pulled the trigger a second time and he said he honestly believed the officers wrestled Dziekanski to the ground, though he acknowledged in the face of the video that he was mistaken.

Ehrcke concluded the officers must have spoken to each other before providing statements to homicide investigators, but all four Mounties denied that.

“This the only rationale inference available,” Ehrcke said.

Another officer, Const. Bill Bentley, was acquitted in 2013, while two other cases have not yet concluded.

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Dziekanski’s mother, Zofia Cisowski, who sat quietly in the public gallery as the judge read the verdict, said Friday was the first time she has been happy since her son died. “I am the happiest person all over the world. I have no words.”

Lawyers will meet again in March to set a date for a sentencing hearing.