Michael Peirce: Canada can't pick and choose allies in war on terror.

This is from the Canadian Press. There is also an article at CBC.

Of course Canada can choose its allies in the war on terror but it chooses not to. In this respect we follow the US and probably actually help out in its dirty work. We are quite aware that Syria uses torture and routinely condemn its human rights record just as the US does. The US renders terror suspects to Syria nevertheless.
No doubt as with the US our intelligence operatives will claim that torture sometimes produces good intelligence results. Perhaps it does although many doubt it for the obvious reason that if you torture people they will admit to anything one wants.
We know the results of torture in the case of Arar. He admitted things he had never done---admissions then leaked by someone in Canada to the press. We know too that Almalki et al were also tortured and asked questions that certainly seem to have come from Canada. Canada uses a kind of rendition lite. It is cheaper and less evident. Perhaps the Syrian government was alerted to Almalki's visit to Syria allowing the Syrians to arrest, imprison, and torture him. Whether this can be proved remains to be seen. At the very least Canada was opportunistic in using Almalki's imprisonment as a means to asking him questions through the Syrians with the added advantage that the Syrians used quite "assertive" interrogation techniques.
This is one of two days of hearings. Iacobucci is supposed to report by the end of January but is requesting an extension. At least one group has abandoned the inquiry because of the excessive secrecy.



Canada can't pick and choose allies in war on terror, inquiry told


OTTAWA - Canadians may abhor torture, but when it comes to fighting global terrorism their government often has to collaborate with regimes that aren't as respectful of human rights, says a federal lawyer.

Michael Peirce told a commission of inquiry Tuesday that Canadian police and security officials can't run the risk of ignoring important intelligence, no matter where they may find it.

"Unfortunately, we know that terrorism is often exported from countries with poor human rights records," Peirce said. "Canada cannot afford to isolate itself, in its information gathering, from those important sources of information."

The inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci, is investigating claims by three Arab-Canadians that they were detained and tortured in Syria and Egypt on the basis of tips provided by Canadian authorities.

Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin all deny any terrorist links and blame the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service for their ordeals.

Peirce began his submissions on the subject with a ringing declaration that "Canada does not countenance torture."

He went on, however, to argue that even though Ottawa has signed the UN Convention Against Torture, that treaty isn't the sole legal authority on the issue.

The convention is broad and general and "does not create a binding legal obligation" on individual federal officials involved in specific cases, he maintained.

Peirce argued that the risk of a suspect being mistreated abroad is only one factor for CSIS and the RCMP to take into account in deciding whether to share information with a foreign regime.

Other considerations could include the track record of the regime in providing useful intelligence and the degree of threat posed by the suspect, he said.

Jasminka Kalajdzic, a lawyer for Almalki, retorted that the government position amounts to an assertion that civil liberties must be sacrificed in the name of fighting terrorism.

"Security cannot be achieved by breaching human rights," she told Iacobucci. "That is the message this inquiry needs to send."

Almalki was more blunt in his comments to reporters outside the hearing room.

"It looks like they want to legalize torture, not directly (but) indirectly," he said.

Almalki noted that he was asked the same questions in Syria that CSIS and the RCMP had previously put to him in Canada. And he suggested the only reason for asking them again in Damascus was that his captors there were free to employ torture to extract answers.

"The questions were the same, the person answering was the same. The only difference was the interrogation method and the environment."

Paul Copeland, another member of Almalki's legal team, said it appears the government hasn't learned a thing from the affair.

"It is a very distressing position that I hear from them ... there's no acceptance of responsibility for what went on."

Lawyers for the three men - along with an array of human rights groups including Amnesty International and Democracy Watch - say it's never justified for Ottawa to tip foreign regimes about the travel plans of Canadian citizens if there's a credible risk that they'll be tortured when they arrive at their destination.

The same logic dictates that neither the RCMP nor CSIS should provide questions to be asked once people are in custody, said Barbara Jackman, a lawyer for El Maati.

"It would never be appropriate in any circumstances," she told the inquiry. "It opens up Canadian officials to a direct charge of complicity (in torture)."

The hearing Tuesday, and another session scheduled for Wednesday, mark the first time since April that Iacobucci has sat in public. Nearly all his work has been behind closed doors, in keeping with the mandate handed to him by the Conservative government more than a year ago.

One group, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, has pulled out of the hearings in protest over the lack of transparency. Almalki acknowledged Tuesday he has considered doing the same but has so far stuck it out in the hope things will improve.

The inquiry was ordered after an earlier probe, headed by Justice Dennis O'Connor, absolved Ottawa engineer Maher Arar of allegations that he was an al-Qaida operative.

O'Connor concluded Arar had been wrongly labelled a terrorist by the RCMP, which passed that information to U.S. authorities.

The Americans, in turn, used the material to deport Arar to Syria where he was tortured into a false confession. He has since been awarded $10.5 million by Ottawa in compensation for his suffering.