Justice department wants most of Iacobucci Inquiry secret.

Iacobucci had better get together with lawyers for the three for whom the inquiry was called and work out some compromise. If he accepts the position of the Justice Dept. the inquiry might go ahead without Almalki, el Maati, or Nurredin. My own intuition is that the intelligence gathered on all three really does not establish that they are terrorists. It is mostly circumstantial and involves guilt by association. The truth is that justice for people caught in these intelligence operations is virtually impossible. Arar was fortunate. The O'Connor inquiry created a situation where Arar was bound to win a suit against the government. The government does not want a repeat result that allows Almalki, el Maati, and Nurredin to also claim compensation. One just result is too many! The US has successfully been able to stave off any justice for its many victims except for one transparent case of mistaken identity.


This article is from the Globe and Mail:

JUDICIAL INQUIRY

Men allegedly tortured reject secret proceedings
ALEX DOBROTA

OTTAWA -- Three Canadian men who claim they were tortured as terror suspects in the Middle East could pull out of an inquiry into their ordeal if the Department of Justice succeeds in keeping proceedings secret, their lawyers said yesterday.

"If they are not permitted participation, an option available to them is they can just go home and carry on by themselves," Barbara Jackman, the lawyer for Torontonians Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, told reporters.

Ms. Jackman presented a similar argument yesterday to retired Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci, who chairs the federal judicial inquiry.

Ms. Jackman's clients, together with Abdullah Almalki, an Ottawa businessman, have alleged in separate civil lawsuits that Canadian officials shared intelligence with Syrian and Egyptian authorities, which led to their detention and torture.



The Conservative government called an "internal inquiry" into the matter last December, and the men agreed to halt their lawsuits pending the findings of the inquiry.

At issue now is whether the proceedings should unfold behind closed doors, which would exclude even the complainants and their lawyers from accessing evidence brought forward by the government.

Under the scenario proposed by the Department of Justice, the three men and their lawyers would only make written submissions to the inquiry, without attending hearings.

That would undermine public confidence in the inquiry, the lawyers for the three men said. "It's going to whitewash the government," Ms. Jackman said.

A lawyer for the Department of Justice yesterday argued that the proceedings should be kept secret to prevent the men from using the findings to claim compensatory payments.

"They undoubtedly have other interests beyond the terms of reference [of the inquiry], including significant civil litigation claims that may be pursued," Michael Peirce said. "The internal inquiry should not become a proxy for these other interests."

All three men say they suffered a brutal fate similar to that of Maher Arar, an Ottawa computer engineer who was arrested in the United States and sent to Syria to be tortured as a terror suspect after the RCMP shared erroneous information with U.S. authorities.

Mr. Arar received $10-million from the federal government in a settlement to his lawsuit.

Mr. Almalki is claiming $15-million in damages. He also wants his name cleared of any past terror suspicions, as do the two other men.

"We could pursue those interests much better in that [civil] process than what we're going to get here," said Jasminka Kalajdzic, one of Mr. Almalki's lawyers