Feds want mostly secret inquiry into alleged detention, torture
Andrew Duffy
CanWest News Service
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Surgical and discrete. What is surgical supposed to mean? I am sure they will not cut out any diseased tissue in the intelligence bodies. Discrete? Don't reveal to anyone who exactly might have done the wrongs if any are found?
If the Department of Justice has its way it is useless for the three lawyers for the persons for whom the inquiry was called to even attend, as Al Malki's lawyer pointed out. They might just as well go ahead and sue even though lawsuits will likely be fruitless since they will involved matters of national security.
OTTAWA - The federal government wants the inquiry into the overseas detention and alleged torture of three Arab-Canadian men to be held largely in secret - without the public or lawyers for the men in the hearing room.
Michael Peirce, lead counsel for the Attorney General of Canada, told commissioner Frank Iacobucci Tuesday that the inquiry process needs to be both "surgical" and "discrete" in keeping within its terms of reference.
What's more, he said, the inquiry does not need to determine whether the three men were, in fact, tortured.
The government concedes the men were imprisoned and mistreated overseas, which is enough to assess the actions of Canadian officials involved in the cases, Peirce argued.
"This inquiry is different in important ways from the Arar inquiry: The terms of reference here are narrower and more specific," he told Iacobucci.
"This should not be a process that takes 2 1/2 years to complete. That is in no one's interest."
Iacobucci, a retired Supreme Court justice, has been appointed by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day to conduct an internal inquiry into actions of Canadian officials, which may have led to the detention and mistreatment of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin.
The three men allege that, like former Ottawa engineer Maher Arar, they were interrogated and tortured in Syria based on information that could only have come from Canada.
El-Maati also alleges that he was tortured in Egypt after being transferred there from Syria.
Iacobucci on Tuesday sought opinions as to how he should conduct an "internal inquiry" that nonetheless inspires public confidence.
Peirce argued that only government lawyers should be present for most of the inquiry, since it is only government officials whose actions are at issue.
The lawyer for Ottawa engineer Abdullah Almalki, however, said such an inquiry would offer a "meaningless process."
"It means this is the last time we would make submissions," Paul Copeland told reporters. "I don't see what participation there is for us in the inquiry if it is all done in private," said Paul Copeland.
Outside the hearing room, Almalki said he wants to know why he and the other men were imprisoned, questioned and tortured based on faulty Canadian intelligence.
"We have the right to know," he said. "Why would the government be pushing, and really pushing hard, to keep everything in secret? What do they want to hide?"
Lawyers representing the three men called for a process similar to the one used by the Arar inquiry, with in-camera sessions reserved for legitimate national security issues.
Ottawa Citizen
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