ORILLIA, Ont. - Ontario's blunt-spoken top cop denied Friday that he had acted vindictively or politically against two senior officers charged with misconduct or against a third officer who became a witness in their case.

Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino also told a Police Act hearing that his talk of "executing" the alleged source of a leak about the force's restructuring was intended to be humorous.

Fantino's explanation came during hearings into charges he authorized against two officers, who headed the force's internal complaints bureau.

Supt. Ken MacDonald and Insp. Alison Jevons are accused of neglect of duty and deceit relating to an investigation they did into a complaint about another officer caught up in a domestic dispute.

Their lawyer, Julian Falconer, maintains Fantino acted against them because he was convinced MacDonald had leaked plans to restructure parts of the police service in the fall of 2006, shortly after he took over the 6,000-member force.

Falconer also maintains Fantino was trying to appease the police union, which was upset over how MacDonald and Jevons had handled the internal probe.

"This is a political process . . . continued by a political commissioner," Falconer has said previously about the Police Act charges.

"This is hysterical nonsense," Fantino said Friday when asked to comment on the assertion.

"None of this is true."

He went on to denounce Falconer's suggestions as "mind-boggling, disingenuous, dishonest."

Apparently upset about the leak, Fantino asked an officer in March 2007 who would "execute the disloyal one," the hearing was told.

The conversation was overheard by Supt. Bill Grodzinski, who took notes of Fantino's comments. Soon after becoming aware of the notes through the Police Act hearing process, Fantino reassigned Grodzinski to another position.

Falconer maintains that was sheer vindictiveness.

Asked to explain what he meant by the term "execute," Fantino explained: "I just meant, 'Either you look into it or I will,' " he told the hearing.

"I used the word 'execute.' I meant, `Put an end to this.' "

It was, the commissioner insisted, "police appropriate" language.

"It slipped out a couple of times. We have not executed anybody nor do we have plans to," he continued.

"It's just to bring a little humour to the situation."

Fantino argued that Grodzinski's reassignment was seen as a step up and that he thought he was bringing the officer "home" by sending him to head the North Bay detachment because the officer's wife was from there.

Nor was a subsequent denial of a promotion for Grodzinski anything but the result of a competitive process, the chief said.

But Fantino made little secret of his contempt for Grodzinski's note-taking, referring to them as "cheat" notes.

"People who know me do not hold onto these notes for later retribution," he said.

He also insisted that laying the Police Act charges against the two officers was anything but his duty as the commissioner.

The fact that the complainant was the police union, upset at how the two officers had handled their probe into another officer had no bearing on what he called "very serious matters," Fantino said.

"In absolutely no way, shape or form was it a punitive thing," Fantino said.