Benamar Benatta: Submission to Iacobucci Inquiry

This is part of the submission by Benatta's legal team. The entire submission and those of everyone else seeking standing is at this site. Benatta was denied standing. The reason given is that the inquiry was specifically to inquire into the cases of three other individuals. I can understand the decision but I thought Iacobucci would at least say that his case ought to be investigated as did O'Connor with respect to Almalki, el Maati, and Nurredin, the three that Iacobucci is investigating. Sorry about the formatting the numbers are lines of pages.


he 15
was sent to the United States for training by the 16
Algerian military. He was to be trained by a U.S. 17
defence contractor. 18
Recognizing that this was his 19
opportunity to cross the border into Canada and 20
seek refugee status, he did so following the 21
completion of that training. 22
He was ordered detained by 23
Canadian authorities pending confirmation of his 24
identity. While he was being held in detention on 25
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September 11th he was unaware of the tragic events 1
that had occurred. In other words, he had no 2
information at that time that those events had in 3
fact taken place. 4
The next day, on September 12th, 5
a hearing was commenced by an Adjudicator of the 6
Immigration and Refugee Board. Without benefit 7
of legal counsel or an interpreter, his detention 8
review hearing was adjourned for a further week. 9
No inquiry into his refugee claim had even been 10
commenced. 11
Later that same day he was 12
questioned by people he believes to be Canadian 13
officials about matters that seemed unrelated to 14
his immigration case. He was asked about his 15
ability to fly an airplane, his relationship to 16
events in Algeria and other matters that bore no 17
relation, as he understood it, to his claim to 18
refugee status in Canada. 19
He was then taken by Canadian 20
officials and placed in the back seat of an 21
automobile. He thought he was being driven to 22
another detention centre in Canada. Instead, he 23
was unceremoniously driven across the border and 24
handed over to American authorities. 25
53

There was no legal authority 1
whatsoever for what was done to Mr. Benatta. He 2
was renditioned and he was not deported from 3
Canada. There was no legal authority such as 4
deportation for his removal from Canada. 5
What happened thereafter is well 6
documented. Solely on the basis of information 7
provided by Canadian officials, he was held in 8
isolation in the Batavia Detention Centre without 9
charge or access to counsel. 10
He was continuously interrogated 11
about the September 11th terrorist attacks. That 12
was the first time he learned about those attacks. 13
On September 16th he was 14
transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Centre 15
in Brooklyn, New York. No charges were laid or 16
access to counsel provided to him. 17
He was held incommunicado in a 18
solitary confinement for many months. He was 19
deprived of sleep. The lights in his cell were 20
never turned off. Every 30 minutes, prison staff 21
would come and bang on the door and awaken him if 22
he had fallen asleep.