Walkom on Iacobucci's rulings re hearings.

The entire issue as to whether intelligence services have a case against the three is not even part of the terms of reference. There is no way this inquiry will do a thing to clear the three whose case is being probed. In fact it is no probe at all just a look at a very narrow range of issues having to do with their being jailed and tortured in Syria (and Egypt in one case) and the relation of this to actions of Canadian intelligence officers and diplomatic officers.
What will be on the website? Will it have any summaries of testimony or will a summary be impossible because virtually anything will be a matter of national security?

Hearings secret, inquiry head rules

Not even the Muslim Canadians whose cases are being probed will be able to hear what's presented

Jun 01, 2007 04:30 AM
Thomas Walkom
National Affairs Writer

Bad news for those hoping to find out more about Canada's murky role in the war on terror. The head of an inquiry into the mistreatment and imprisonment of three Muslim Canadian men has ruled that, save in exceptional circumstances, the entire exercise will be carried out in secret.

Former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci said these hearings will be so secret that not even the three complainants – or their lawyers – will be allowed to hear the bulk of the evidence before him.

Iacobucci did reserve the right to hold public hearings any time he wants. But in the 32-page ruling released yesterday, he made it clear that such instances will be very much the exception.

The inquiry was set up by the federal Conservative government to look into Canada's role in the imprisonment and mistreatment of Canadian citizens Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin.

All three were arrested during separate visits to Syria between 2001 and 2003. All say they were tortured. None has been charged with a crime in any country.

All were also under some kind of surveillance by either the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or the RCMP before their arrests. Almalki and El Maati were part of the CSIS-RCMP investigation that ended up focusing on Maher Arar, the Canadian Muslim who became a cause célèbre in this country after he was deported by U.S. authorities to Syria in 2002 to be tortured. Nureddin came to the attention of CSIS in 2000, apparently because agents wanted to find out more about the Scarborough mosque where he prays.

According to Justice Dennis O'Connor's report into the Arar affair, Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin were all tortured in Syria during their imprisonment.

However the federal government has never accepted that part of O'Connor's report, calling it "rife with frailties." It wanted Iacobucci to ignore the torture allegations as irrelevant.

In his ruling yesterday, Iacobucci disagreed. He said he thought that torture was a serious enough matter to warrant further investigation of the three men's complaints.

But on secrecy, he sided fully with the government. He said the terms of reference for his inquiry demand that secrecy be the norm. He also said it would make his work go faster.

The question of secrecy has dogged this inquiry since it was set up last December. In its terms of reference, Ottawa directed the commissioner to take "all steps necessary to ensure the Inquiry is conducted in private."

But at the same time, the government gave Iacobucci, who is also chair of Torstar Inc., the Toronto Star's parent company, leeway to hold portions in public if he thought doing so was "essential."

The three complainants, as well as a group of interveners that includes Amnesty International, argued that it made no sense to have a public inquiry that takes place almost entirely in private.

Indeed, during the Arar inquiry – a great deal of which was public – the hearings revealed in a manner that O'Connor's final report never could the cavalier attitude of the RCMP, CSIS and some senior foreign service officers toward torture.

In effect, witnesses told O'Connor during those hearings, the treatment of Canadians in Syria was Syria's business. What was important to the Canadian security services was the information they could glean.

To that end, as O'Connor noted, the RCMP even sent Syria a list of questions to ask Almalki when he was in their custody.

Like any skilled judge, Iacobucci has given himself leeway to change his mind as the inquiry progresses. But it seems the die has been cast.

"It's disappointing," says Amnesty's John Tackaberry. Which is an understatement