There does not seem to be much publicity re any compensation for Almalki et al. There is even less publicity about any accountability or punishment for anyone involved in mislabeling either in the Arar case or the Almalki et al cases. In fact this is one of the few articles I have seen that even brings up the issue of accountability for staff who are indirectly responsible for the horrible torture and mistreatment that was inflicted on these Canadians. We have untouchables in our midst who go on with their jobs or are even promoted when they ought to receive some punishment for what they have done. The sign that we are giving to our intelligence operatives is that they can get away with reckless labeling with no proper grounds for their assessments and yet not suffer at all. This can only result in more human rights violations.
Time for justice on rights abuses
Nov 18, 2008 08:43 AM ALEX NEVE, KHALED MOUAMMAR, SAMEER ZUBERI, FAISAL KUTTY, NEHAL BHUTA AND WARREN ALLMAND
Ahmad Abou-Elmaati. Abdullah Almalki. Muayyed Nureddin. Maher Arar. These four Canadians of Arab and Muslim origin were locked up in the same Syrian jail cells and brutalized by the same torturers. What was the role of Canadian officials in their chilling tales? Did officials strive to protect their rights? Turn their back? Set them up?
For five years — since Maher Arar’s return to Canada — Canadians have grappled with these questions. Fundamental issues are at stake. Foremost is justice for the men themselves. But there are also wider concerns: the equality of all Canadians, respect for the rule of law, accountability, the effectiveness of our national security agencies, and the place of human rights in a post 9/11 world.
The effort to get to the bottom of these concerns has been unprecedented. Two inquiries have been convened, headed by highly respected jurists. Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Dennis O’Connor spent 2 6½7 years examining Maher Arar’s case, issuing two reports in 2006. Former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci spent close to two years probing the other three cases, and issued his report last month.
As a result, we now know a great deal about what went wrong in these cases. We know about the inflammatory labels that Canadian officials used to describe these men in exchanges with other governments, such as “Islamic extremists” and “imminent threats.” Both judges conclude that the labels were inaccurate and without foundation.
We know about the ways that Canadian action contributed to the imprisonment and torture of these four men. They sent information that led to their detention. They sent questions used in their interrogations under torture. We know also of the multiple failures to act to defend their rights. We know all of this and more.
So now what? The government responded, in part, to the Arar inquiry. Maher Arar rightfully received an official apology and compensation. Beyond that we know very little. Former public safety minister Stockwell Day said the Arar recommendations have been implemented, but there has been no public reporting to back up that claim. Justice O’Connor’s proposal for a comprehensive oversight mechanism for reviewing the national security activities of the RCMP, CSIS and other agencies has not been implemented. Day said there would be an announcement on that front soon.
Our organizations were involved in both of these inquiries. With Commissioner Iacobucci’s work now complete, it is clear to us that the government must act in five key areas.
There must be redress. As with Maher Arar, the government must officially apologize to Ahmad Abou-Elmaati, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin and their families. The government should also launch negotiations toward fair compensation.
There must be accountability. No Canadian official has faced consequences for the wrongdoing that led to the human rights violations endured by Maher Arar. Many have been promoted. That cannot stand; and it cannot be the response to the other three cases. An impartial body must determine appropriate accountability — disciplinary, criminal or other measures — for the abuses suffered by all four of these men. Other governments are implicated as well, including Syria, Egypt, and the United States. Individuals who carried out or ordered torture, authorized rendition and committed other human rights violations in those countries must be held to account. Charges can be laid under the Canadian Criminal Code. And the Canadian government must stop blocking the efforts of these men to launch lawsuits against Syria and Egypt in Canadian courts.
There must be reform. These four men all eloquently stress that they are not only seeking justice for themselves. They want to be sure that others do not suffer the same fate. That is why the Arar inquiry recommendations, bolstered now by Iacobucci’s findings, need action. We need more than blithe assertions that has happened. We need detailed public reporting on progress. We certainly cannot wait any longer for reform of national security oversight. O’Connor put a comprehensive proposal in front of the government two years ago. It is time for implementation.
There must be leadership. Canadian officials have been responsible for a series of vicious leaks about each of these men. Through two judicial inquiries they have now been subject to levels of scrutiny that few Canadians have ever faced. Yet they continue to face vilification in some quarters. The Prime Minister and responsible ministers must show leadership in discouraging hate and racism, and be clear that ongoing attempts by some commentators to smear these men is unacceptable.
Finally there must be global action. Two judges have documented the brutal torture of four Canadians in Syria and Egypt. This must become a catalyst for Canada to become a global champion of the struggle to end torture in those two countries and worldwide. That means action to end Canadian complicity in torture. That means forceful efforts to press other governments to end torture. That means principled leadership at the UN and other world bodies to strengthen global initiatives to eradicate torture.
Canadians are looking to their government to respond meaningfully to these very serious human rights concerns. The way forward is clear: redress, accountability, reform, leadership and global action. After the years of injustice, now is the time for justice.
Alex Neve is secretary general of Amnesty International Canada; Khaled Mouammar is president of the Canadian Arab Federation; Sameer Zuberi is human rights co-ordinator at the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations; Faisal Kutty is general counsel for the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association; Nehal Bhuta is special adviser on counterterrorism for Human Rights Watch; and Warren Allmand is counsel for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group.
Showing posts with label Arar inquiry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arar inquiry. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Lawyers dispute Harper's comments on Omar Khadr
This is from CTV.
Harper surely is not so stupid as not to know that he has alternatives or if he is we are really in trouble. What Harper knows is that Khadr is not popular and that many Canadians have absolutely no sympathy for him. Many comments in the blogosphere and on this article bear this out. Many of the comments exhibit blissful ignorance and complete contempt for issues of human rights. All one has to do is categorise someone as a terror suspect and this causes the mental faculties of many people to close right down.
Canada is obviously complicit in human rights violations by the United States and it is not just in the case of Khadr but it would seem in the Arar case indirectly if not directly and also in the cases being investigated by Iacobucci. It remains to be seen what Iacobucci will have to say. With the secrecy with which the investigation is being carried out and the lack of input from lawyers what has happened so far is not at all promising.
As Khadr's lawyer maintains if Harper actually requested that Khadr be returned to Canada even the Bush administration might agree. The Bush administration is actually looking for places to send Guantanamo detainees.
Lawyers dispute Harper's comments on Omar Khadr
CTV.ca News Staff Updated: Thu. Jul. 10 2008 3:23 PM ET
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that his government has "no real alternative" to the U.S. legal system in the Omar Khadr case, but the accused terrorist suspect's lawyers and opposition critics strongly disagree.
"This is a disingenuous comment from the prime minister," Khadr's Canadian lawyer Dennis Edney told The Canadian Press.
"The prime minister, through his cabinet members, particularly Mr. (Peter) MacKay, have long said that they have been assured that Omar Khadr was being well treated, when in fact the Canadian government well knew that was not the case," he said.
The prime minister's comments come a day after explosive new documents suggest Canada was aware of the harsh treatment that Khadr was being subjected to in Guantanamo Bay at the hands of U.S. military interrogators.
But Harper, speaking Thursday in Tokyo, Japan following this week's G8 meetings, said Canada had little say in the situation and has no intention of interfering.
The Foreign Affairs documents released by Khadr's defence team this week show Khadr was visited in 2004 by Canadian officials. They found the then 17-year-old had been deprived of sleep for weeks in an attempt to make him more pliable for interrogation by U.S. agents.
Harper distanced his government from the documents. He said former prime minister Paul Martin's government was aware of how Khadr was being treated, but there was little that could have been done.
"The previous government took a whole range, all of the information into account when they made the decision on how to proceed with the Khadr case several years ago,'' he said.
Harper added that Canada: "frankly, has no real alternative'' to the U.S. legal process.
Harper criticized
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, who was not part of the Paul Martin government, said on CTV Newsnet that "things got caught up" in the post-9/11 scramble to take direct action against terror suspects by governments.
But he says that time has passed and "it's extremely important for Canadians to take full responsibility for one of our own citizens and insist that he be brought home."
"Other countries have done the same and I can't, quite frankly, explain why Canada didn't do the same, but I think we should, and it's not too late to do that now," he added.
"I think it's time for Mr. Khadr to face justice in Canada."
Edney asked why Harper would criticize China's human rights record but ignore the situation in Guantanamo.
"It boggles my mind that this prime minister is prepared to criticize China over human rights and is prepared to lambaste Mexico for the way its criminal justice system is applied to a Canadian," he said.
"But when you have a young Canadian who is in Guantanamo Bay whom Canadian courts have said has been abused and tortured, our government remains silent."
Khadr's U.S, military lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, put the blame squarely on Harper's shoulders. He said the U.S. would probably have complied with a request from Harper to have Khadr transferred into Canadian custody -- but the request hasn't been made.
As a result, Kuebler said, any harsh treatment endured by Khadr is Canada's responsibility.
"This really shows the assurances the U.S. government has been providing to the Canadian government for all these years have been false, and at least since 2004 the Canadian government knew it was false."
The Toronto-born terror suspect is accused of throwing a grenade in 2002 in Afghanistan that killed a U.S. special forces soldier.
Khadr, 15 at the time, was captured and eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he has remained ever since.
The son of an alleged al Qaeda financier -- and the only Canadian being held in Gitmo -- Khadr is set to go to trial in October.
According to the reports released by Khadr's defence team, Canadian official Jim Ghould visited Khadr in 2004 and was briefed by U.S. military officials on Khadr's case.
One report says Khadr was moved every three hours for 21 days -- a technique known as the 'frequent flyer program' -- in an attempt to deprive him of sleep and weaken his ability to withstand interrogation.
And a U.S. Air Force report from February 2003 says Khadr wasn't allowed to receive mail from his family in Canada.
When he was finally given a letter from his grandmother, agents watched secretly as the young man broke down in tears.
The same report says Khadr was picked on by other inmates following his interview sessions with officials.
CTV's legal analyst Steven Skurka called the new revelations a "bombshell."
"We've been told repeatedly by the Canadian government he's been treated humanely and now it appears in the face of those statements the Canadian government knew otherwise," Skurka told Canada AM.
He added that the treatment described in the documents "could be called torture, it's certainly inhumane, it's certainly a story that really has to make Canadians wake up and shudder."
With files from The Canadian Press
© 2008 All Rights Reserved.
Harper surely is not so stupid as not to know that he has alternatives or if he is we are really in trouble. What Harper knows is that Khadr is not popular and that many Canadians have absolutely no sympathy for him. Many comments in the blogosphere and on this article bear this out. Many of the comments exhibit blissful ignorance and complete contempt for issues of human rights. All one has to do is categorise someone as a terror suspect and this causes the mental faculties of many people to close right down.
Canada is obviously complicit in human rights violations by the United States and it is not just in the case of Khadr but it would seem in the Arar case indirectly if not directly and also in the cases being investigated by Iacobucci. It remains to be seen what Iacobucci will have to say. With the secrecy with which the investigation is being carried out and the lack of input from lawyers what has happened so far is not at all promising.
As Khadr's lawyer maintains if Harper actually requested that Khadr be returned to Canada even the Bush administration might agree. The Bush administration is actually looking for places to send Guantanamo detainees.
Lawyers dispute Harper's comments on Omar Khadr
CTV.ca News Staff Updated: Thu. Jul. 10 2008 3:23 PM ET
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that his government has "no real alternative" to the U.S. legal system in the Omar Khadr case, but the accused terrorist suspect's lawyers and opposition critics strongly disagree.
"This is a disingenuous comment from the prime minister," Khadr's Canadian lawyer Dennis Edney told The Canadian Press.
"The prime minister, through his cabinet members, particularly Mr. (Peter) MacKay, have long said that they have been assured that Omar Khadr was being well treated, when in fact the Canadian government well knew that was not the case," he said.
The prime minister's comments come a day after explosive new documents suggest Canada was aware of the harsh treatment that Khadr was being subjected to in Guantanamo Bay at the hands of U.S. military interrogators.
But Harper, speaking Thursday in Tokyo, Japan following this week's G8 meetings, said Canada had little say in the situation and has no intention of interfering.
The Foreign Affairs documents released by Khadr's defence team this week show Khadr was visited in 2004 by Canadian officials. They found the then 17-year-old had been deprived of sleep for weeks in an attempt to make him more pliable for interrogation by U.S. agents.
Harper distanced his government from the documents. He said former prime minister Paul Martin's government was aware of how Khadr was being treated, but there was little that could have been done.
"The previous government took a whole range, all of the information into account when they made the decision on how to proceed with the Khadr case several years ago,'' he said.
Harper added that Canada: "frankly, has no real alternative'' to the U.S. legal process.
Harper criticized
Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, who was not part of the Paul Martin government, said on CTV Newsnet that "things got caught up" in the post-9/11 scramble to take direct action against terror suspects by governments.
But he says that time has passed and "it's extremely important for Canadians to take full responsibility for one of our own citizens and insist that he be brought home."
"Other countries have done the same and I can't, quite frankly, explain why Canada didn't do the same, but I think we should, and it's not too late to do that now," he added.
"I think it's time for Mr. Khadr to face justice in Canada."
Edney asked why Harper would criticize China's human rights record but ignore the situation in Guantanamo.
"It boggles my mind that this prime minister is prepared to criticize China over human rights and is prepared to lambaste Mexico for the way its criminal justice system is applied to a Canadian," he said.
"But when you have a young Canadian who is in Guantanamo Bay whom Canadian courts have said has been abused and tortured, our government remains silent."
Khadr's U.S, military lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, put the blame squarely on Harper's shoulders. He said the U.S. would probably have complied with a request from Harper to have Khadr transferred into Canadian custody -- but the request hasn't been made.
As a result, Kuebler said, any harsh treatment endured by Khadr is Canada's responsibility.
"This really shows the assurances the U.S. government has been providing to the Canadian government for all these years have been false, and at least since 2004 the Canadian government knew it was false."
The Toronto-born terror suspect is accused of throwing a grenade in 2002 in Afghanistan that killed a U.S. special forces soldier.
Khadr, 15 at the time, was captured and eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he has remained ever since.
The son of an alleged al Qaeda financier -- and the only Canadian being held in Gitmo -- Khadr is set to go to trial in October.
According to the reports released by Khadr's defence team, Canadian official Jim Ghould visited Khadr in 2004 and was briefed by U.S. military officials on Khadr's case.
One report says Khadr was moved every three hours for 21 days -- a technique known as the 'frequent flyer program' -- in an attempt to deprive him of sleep and weaken his ability to withstand interrogation.
And a U.S. Air Force report from February 2003 says Khadr wasn't allowed to receive mail from his family in Canada.
When he was finally given a letter from his grandmother, agents watched secretly as the young man broke down in tears.
The same report says Khadr was picked on by other inmates following his interview sessions with officials.
CTV's legal analyst Steven Skurka called the new revelations a "bombshell."
"We've been told repeatedly by the Canadian government he's been treated humanely and now it appears in the face of those statements the Canadian government knew otherwise," Skurka told Canada AM.
He added that the treatment described in the documents "could be called torture, it's certainly inhumane, it's certainly a story that really has to make Canadians wake up and shudder."
With files from The Canadian Press
© 2008 All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Alex Neve: A Year After the Arar Inquiry
Neve points out that the recommendations of the inquiry are for the most part not implemented as yet. Also, no one was every punished for any wrongdoing or "mistakes" revealed. In fact some involved have been promoted.
As Neve points out the Iacobucci Inquiry is going on behind closed doors. Closed to everyone on the side of those in whose name the inquiry was called. THere are not even progress reports or summaries. Nada. This is what goes under the name transparency and accountability when it comes to anything involving national security even remotely.
The Arar inquiry one year later
By ALEX NEVE | 7:39 AM
It was one year ago this week that the first report from the commission of inquiry into the Maher Arar case was released. And sadly, we are still waiting for the government to take action on the bulk of the inquiry’s recommendations.
That first report provided a detailed account of the actions of Canadian police, security and diplomatic officials. It extensively catalogued the mistakes and wrongdoings on the part of Canadian officials and laid out a range of recommendations, both to ensure justice for Mr. Arar and to guard against similar tragedies in the future.
Three months later, a second report was released, in which commissioner Dennis O’Connor recommended the creation of a comprehensive oversight agency to watch over the national security activities of the RCMP, CSIS, the Canadian Border Services Agency and other departments.
One year later, action has been taken on only a handful of these valuable recommendations. Importantly, measures were taken to offer justice and redress to Mr. Arar, notably the apology and compensation offered to him and his family. There was some effort made as well to protest Mr. Arar’s treatment at the hands of other governments. Official complaints were filed with both the U.S. and Syrian governments. From U.S. authorities, though, there has been only defiance; and from Syria, silence. Clearly, a more assertive strategy and continuing efforts are needed before either of those governments will come clean. A starting point would be for the Canadian government to support Mr. Arar’s own attempt to pursue answers through U.S. courts.
Canadian officials did take action on one other important recommendation in the Arar inquiry. Last December, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day set up a second inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci, to look into the related cases of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin. They, too, were caught up in Canadian national security agencies and, like Mr. Arar, they suffered terribly at the hands of torturers in Syria (and additionally, for Mr. Elmaati, Egypt). The inquiry is examining the very troubling questions that have arisen about the role Canadian officials played in these cases.
But the exceptionally restrictive, internal mandate given to commissioner Iacobucci requires all proceedings be conducted in camera, without the participation of lawyers for the three men or the involvement of organizations that have been granted intervenor status. It has become an agonizing process for three men who want answers, but are faced only with closed doors and secrets.
And more secrecy is certainly not what Canadians expect. Among the many important revelations to come out of the Arar inquiry was recognition of the vital role that transparency and openness must play in ensuring that abuses and mistakes made in the course of national security investigations can, and will, be addressed. The deeply entrenched culture of secrecy must give way to a commitment to accountability. A strong indication of that shift would be for the government to instruct its lawyers at the Iacobucci inquiry to urge that parts of the process be opened up to the public.
Beyond these initiatives, no other government action has been taken, nor has there been any indication of further plans to do so. When the report was released a year ago, the government unequivocally committed to act on its recommendations. At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "We are preparing our response as quickly as possible. It is clear that Mr. Arar was the victim of an injustice, and this government intends to act."
The work of the Arar inquiry was ground-breaking, both domestically and internationally. It offered concrete guidance to governments as to how to ensure that human rights protection and the rule of law are not sacrificed in the pursuit of national security objectives. One year on, the Canadian government needs to move beyond intending to act. It is time to act. Nothing less than immediate steps to implement the entirety of the inquiry’s recommendations will do.
Alex Neve is secretary general, Amnesty International Canada.
As Neve points out the Iacobucci Inquiry is going on behind closed doors. Closed to everyone on the side of those in whose name the inquiry was called. THere are not even progress reports or summaries. Nada. This is what goes under the name transparency and accountability when it comes to anything involving national security even remotely.
The Arar inquiry one year later
By ALEX NEVE | 7:39 AM
It was one year ago this week that the first report from the commission of inquiry into the Maher Arar case was released. And sadly, we are still waiting for the government to take action on the bulk of the inquiry’s recommendations.
That first report provided a detailed account of the actions of Canadian police, security and diplomatic officials. It extensively catalogued the mistakes and wrongdoings on the part of Canadian officials and laid out a range of recommendations, both to ensure justice for Mr. Arar and to guard against similar tragedies in the future.
Three months later, a second report was released, in which commissioner Dennis O’Connor recommended the creation of a comprehensive oversight agency to watch over the national security activities of the RCMP, CSIS, the Canadian Border Services Agency and other departments.
One year later, action has been taken on only a handful of these valuable recommendations. Importantly, measures were taken to offer justice and redress to Mr. Arar, notably the apology and compensation offered to him and his family. There was some effort made as well to protest Mr. Arar’s treatment at the hands of other governments. Official complaints were filed with both the U.S. and Syrian governments. From U.S. authorities, though, there has been only defiance; and from Syria, silence. Clearly, a more assertive strategy and continuing efforts are needed before either of those governments will come clean. A starting point would be for the Canadian government to support Mr. Arar’s own attempt to pursue answers through U.S. courts.
Canadian officials did take action on one other important recommendation in the Arar inquiry. Last December, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day set up a second inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci, to look into the related cases of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin. They, too, were caught up in Canadian national security agencies and, like Mr. Arar, they suffered terribly at the hands of torturers in Syria (and additionally, for Mr. Elmaati, Egypt). The inquiry is examining the very troubling questions that have arisen about the role Canadian officials played in these cases.
But the exceptionally restrictive, internal mandate given to commissioner Iacobucci requires all proceedings be conducted in camera, without the participation of lawyers for the three men or the involvement of organizations that have been granted intervenor status. It has become an agonizing process for three men who want answers, but are faced only with closed doors and secrets.
And more secrecy is certainly not what Canadians expect. Among the many important revelations to come out of the Arar inquiry was recognition of the vital role that transparency and openness must play in ensuring that abuses and mistakes made in the course of national security investigations can, and will, be addressed. The deeply entrenched culture of secrecy must give way to a commitment to accountability. A strong indication of that shift would be for the government to instruct its lawyers at the Iacobucci inquiry to urge that parts of the process be opened up to the public.
Beyond these initiatives, no other government action has been taken, nor has there been any indication of further plans to do so. When the report was released a year ago, the government unequivocally committed to act on its recommendations. At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "We are preparing our response as quickly as possible. It is clear that Mr. Arar was the victim of an injustice, and this government intends to act."
The work of the Arar inquiry was ground-breaking, both domestically and internationally. It offered concrete guidance to governments as to how to ensure that human rights protection and the rule of law are not sacrificed in the pursuit of national security objectives. One year on, the Canadian government needs to move beyond intending to act. It is time to act. Nothing less than immediate steps to implement the entirety of the inquiry’s recommendations will do.
Alex Neve is secretary general, Amnesty International Canada.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Memos show CSIS suspected torture
Indeed CSIS did nothing to inform the govt. of their suspicions. They took advantage of the situation to feed questions to the Syrians. They also used "info" from other Canadians (El Maati) in Syrian jails to get wiretaps without informing the judge that the info might have resulted from torture. These creeps then claim that they had independent verification. If they had that why did they not use it instead of the tainted evidence. Answer: Because they are simply lying and have no such evidence. It is just like the independent evidence that the US has that Arar is a terrorist. It is pure BS. Harper will do nothing further about Arar. You can count on that. This is from this site.Memos show CSIS suspected torture
August 10, 2007
Canadian Press
OTTAWA
Canada's spy agency suspected, within two days of Maher Arar's deportation from the United States, that the CIA had shipped him somewhere to face possible torture, newly released documents show.
But there's no indication, in the paper trail made public yesterday, that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service alerted its political masters at the time -- an oversight that critics say smacks of tacit collusion in the ordeal Arar ultimately faced in Syria.
The documentary evidence, compiled by a public inquiry into the affair, shows a Washington-based liaison officer for CSIS wrote to his superiors in Ottawa in early October 2002 about so-called "rendering'' of terrorist suspects to third countries by the Americans.
The CSIS officer suggested Arar's detention and subsequent removal from the U.S. fit an emerging trend in which American authorities would sometimes send terrorism suspects abroad for questioning "in a firm manner'' if they couldn't legally hold them or lay charges at home.
The deputy director of CSIS, Jack Hooper, later stated in a memorandum dated Oct. 10, 2002: "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him.''
In fact, two days before Hooper wrote that memo, U.S. officials had already taken Arar from a holding cell in New York at 3 a.m. and put him on a Gulfstream executive jet to Jordan.
From there he was quickly transferred to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al-Qaida.
At the time Hooper offered his observations, CSIS knew only that the Ottawa telecommunications engineer had been removed from New York. It didn't know any other details and was desperately trying to find out from both the CIA and FBI what had happened to him.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on a trip to the Arctic, noted that he's already raised the Arar case with Washington but dodged the question of whether he would renew that effort, or consult CSIS, in light of the latest findings.
Harper also attempted to shift the blame for what happened to Arar to the previous government, saying his aim is to "ensure that the events that occurred under the Liberals are not replicated for other Canadian citizens.''
Justice Dennis O'Connor, who headed the inquiry into the case, tried to include a description of the 2002 CSIS suspicions in his report last year.
The material was withheld from public view at that time because of claims -- by lawyers for Harper's government -- that it could undermine national security, international relations or the defence of Canada.
Those contentions were rejected by a Federal Court judge, who ruled last month that the information should be released.
Paul Cavalluzzo, chief counsel for the O'Connor inquiry, said he's glad the information is finally on the public record.
"Our position all along was that the government was overclaiming,'' said Cavalluzzo. "The law is very clear that the government can only legitimately claim material that could injure national security. That's not to be used to cover information that could cause embarrassment.''
Marlys Edwardh, one of the lawyers for Arar, said it doesn't appear, from the evidence she's seen, that CSIS ever shared its suspicions about the CIA's role in the affair with the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien five years ago.
"They did absolutely nothing,'' said Edwardh. "Where's the memo to cabinet, where's the memo to the prime minister, to the solicitor general?
"The only thing you can draw from this is that they (CSIS) are making sure that this policy of rendering people -- outsourcing interrogation in circumstances when someone is going to be tortured -- is something they supported.''
There was no comment from CSIS on the matter. In Washington, a spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department reiterated his government's long-standing position that Arar was lawfully deported as a security risk. The Americans have always maintained they had assurances from the Syrian government that he wouldn't be tortured.
On another point, Edwardh was scathing in her criticism of the RCMP for relying on intelligence obtained abroad, again possibly under torture, to support search and wiretap warrant applications within Canada.
The Mounties played fast and loose with their duty to make full disclosure to the judges who issued those warrants, she said.
"The effect is to create a false impression . . . It perpetrates a fraud on the court.''
O'Connor concluded, in a section of his report that had also been secret until now, that the RCMP used information from an unnamed country to help obtain search warrants against several individuals in January 2002, as part of a wider anti-terrorist investigation known as Project A-O Canada.
They neglected to mention to the judge who issued the warrants that the country had a questionable human rights record, and conducted no analysis of their own to determine if the information had been obtained under torture.
O'Connor also found that the Mounties again included suspect evidence in an application for a wiretap warrant in September 2002. This time the information came from a purported confession by Ahmad El Maati, another Arab-Canadian who was interrogated in Damascus but later repudiated the statements he made there and said they were extracted under torture.
The RCMP acknowledged, in their affidavit, that El Maati had changed his story but suggested he could be lying in his claims of mistreatment as part of a "damage control'' effort. They also insisted that, whatever the circumstances of the original confession, they had obtained evidence to corroborate what the Syrians had passed to them.
A separate inquiry is currently underway, under former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, into the cases of El Maati and two other men, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All three deny any terrorist links and suspect the RCMP and CSIS collaborated in their detention and torture abroad.
O'Connor has already cleared Arar, saying the RCMP wrongly labelled him a terrorist and passed that information to U.S. authorities, who in turn used it to arrest him and deport him. The judge found no evidence, however, that Canadian intelligence or police officers directly collaborated in the decision to send Arar to Syria.
The Conservative government has since apologized to Arar and paid him $10.5 million in compensation. He has launched a separate legal action south of the border, seeking damages from the U.S. government, which continues to keep his name on a terrorism watch list despite the findings in Canada.
KEY ARAR DATES
Sept. 26, 2002: Arar arrives at JFK Airport in New York City, on a flight from Zurich, headed for Montreal. He is detained by U.S. authorities, questioned, told he is inadmissible to the United States and asked where he would like to go. He says Canada.
Oct. 4, 2002: Arar is visited by Maureen Girvan, a Canadian consular officer in New York. She later says she never thought the Americans would send him anywhere except home to Canada.
Oct. 8, 2002: Arar is taken from his cell at 3 a.m. and told by American officials he is being deported to Syria.
Oct. 9, 2002: The plane lands in Jordan and Arar is quickly transferred by car to Damascus where he is to be jailed.
Oct. 10, 2002: Arar gets his first look at a cell he describes as being the size of a grave. He is to spend most of the next 10 months there. In Ottawa, the deputy director of CSIS, not knowing where Arar is, states in a memorandum: "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him.''
Oct. 11, 2002: Arar is tortured for the first time, beaten on his palms, wrists, lower back and hips with an electrical cable. He confesses -- falsely -- to terrorist training in Afghanistan.
Oct. 23, 2002: Arar meets Canadian consul Leo Martel for the first time. The beatings have lessened since he was first jailed.
April 23, 2003: Arar meets Canadian ambassador Franco Pillarella and two visiting Canadian MPs, Marlene Catterall and Sarkis Assadourian.
Aug. 14, 2003: Routine consular visits resume after a long interruption. Arar describes his living conditions and later says he told the consul he had been tortured.
Aug. 23, 2003: Arar is blindfolded, put in a car and driven to a new prison. His treatment improves and there is no further torture. He is no longer held in solitary confinement and can mix with other prisoners.
Oct. 4, 2003: After days of anticipating further interrogation, Arar is told instead that he will be going home to Canada. He doesn't believe it.
Oct. 5, 2003: Arar is taken to meet a prosecutor who reads out a confession of his supposed terrorist past and tells him to sign it without giving him a chance to read it. He is then taken to meet the head of Syrian military intelligence, who has been joined by Canadian officials for the occasion. Arar is freed and put on a plane to Canada.
Feb. 5, 2004: Government sets up a formal inquiry under Justice Dennis O'Connor to look into the whole Arar case.
Sept. 18, 2006: Justice O'Connor's report exonerates Arar of any wrongdoing, says inexperienced RCMP investigators wrongly gave inaccurate, unfair and overstated evidence about Arar's alleged terrorist leanings.
Jan. 26, 2007: Federal government settles with Arar with $10.5 million, plus legal fees. Prime Minister Stephen Harper offers a formal apology.
July 24, 2007: Justice Simon Noel rules in Federal Court that some previously secret findings of the commission must be revealed after commission counsel challenged a government decision to censor 1,500 words from O'Connor report.
July 26, 2007: Inquiry officials announce that despite the fact not all 1,500 censored words were opened to the public, they will not appeal federal Court decision; other parties to the inquiry follow suit.
Aug. 3, 2007: Deadline for federal attorney general appeal of decision passes.
Aug. 9, 2007: Censored words and passages are released, indicating Canadian security officials suspected that Arar had been shipped off to a third country by U.S. officials to be tortured.
CANADIAN PRESS
August 10, 2007
Canadian Press
OTTAWA
Canada's spy agency suspected, within two days of Maher Arar's deportation from the United States, that the CIA had shipped him somewhere to face possible torture, newly released documents show.
But there's no indication, in the paper trail made public yesterday, that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service alerted its political masters at the time -- an oversight that critics say smacks of tacit collusion in the ordeal Arar ultimately faced in Syria.
The documentary evidence, compiled by a public inquiry into the affair, shows a Washington-based liaison officer for CSIS wrote to his superiors in Ottawa in early October 2002 about so-called "rendering'' of terrorist suspects to third countries by the Americans.
The CSIS officer suggested Arar's detention and subsequent removal from the U.S. fit an emerging trend in which American authorities would sometimes send terrorism suspects abroad for questioning "in a firm manner'' if they couldn't legally hold them or lay charges at home.
The deputy director of CSIS, Jack Hooper, later stated in a memorandum dated Oct. 10, 2002: "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him.''
In fact, two days before Hooper wrote that memo, U.S. officials had already taken Arar from a holding cell in New York at 3 a.m. and put him on a Gulfstream executive jet to Jordan.
From there he was quickly transferred to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al-Qaida.
At the time Hooper offered his observations, CSIS knew only that the Ottawa telecommunications engineer had been removed from New York. It didn't know any other details and was desperately trying to find out from both the CIA and FBI what had happened to him.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on a trip to the Arctic, noted that he's already raised the Arar case with Washington but dodged the question of whether he would renew that effort, or consult CSIS, in light of the latest findings.
Harper also attempted to shift the blame for what happened to Arar to the previous government, saying his aim is to "ensure that the events that occurred under the Liberals are not replicated for other Canadian citizens.''
Justice Dennis O'Connor, who headed the inquiry into the case, tried to include a description of the 2002 CSIS suspicions in his report last year.
The material was withheld from public view at that time because of claims -- by lawyers for Harper's government -- that it could undermine national security, international relations or the defence of Canada.
Those contentions were rejected by a Federal Court judge, who ruled last month that the information should be released.
Paul Cavalluzzo, chief counsel for the O'Connor inquiry, said he's glad the information is finally on the public record.
"Our position all along was that the government was overclaiming,'' said Cavalluzzo. "The law is very clear that the government can only legitimately claim material that could injure national security. That's not to be used to cover information that could cause embarrassment.''
Marlys Edwardh, one of the lawyers for Arar, said it doesn't appear, from the evidence she's seen, that CSIS ever shared its suspicions about the CIA's role in the affair with the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien five years ago.
"They did absolutely nothing,'' said Edwardh. "Where's the memo to cabinet, where's the memo to the prime minister, to the solicitor general?
"The only thing you can draw from this is that they (CSIS) are making sure that this policy of rendering people -- outsourcing interrogation in circumstances when someone is going to be tortured -- is something they supported.''
There was no comment from CSIS on the matter. In Washington, a spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department reiterated his government's long-standing position that Arar was lawfully deported as a security risk. The Americans have always maintained they had assurances from the Syrian government that he wouldn't be tortured.
On another point, Edwardh was scathing in her criticism of the RCMP for relying on intelligence obtained abroad, again possibly under torture, to support search and wiretap warrant applications within Canada.
The Mounties played fast and loose with their duty to make full disclosure to the judges who issued those warrants, she said.
"The effect is to create a false impression . . . It perpetrates a fraud on the court.''
O'Connor concluded, in a section of his report that had also been secret until now, that the RCMP used information from an unnamed country to help obtain search warrants against several individuals in January 2002, as part of a wider anti-terrorist investigation known as Project A-O Canada.
They neglected to mention to the judge who issued the warrants that the country had a questionable human rights record, and conducted no analysis of their own to determine if the information had been obtained under torture.
O'Connor also found that the Mounties again included suspect evidence in an application for a wiretap warrant in September 2002. This time the information came from a purported confession by Ahmad El Maati, another Arab-Canadian who was interrogated in Damascus but later repudiated the statements he made there and said they were extracted under torture.
The RCMP acknowledged, in their affidavit, that El Maati had changed his story but suggested he could be lying in his claims of mistreatment as part of a "damage control'' effort. They also insisted that, whatever the circumstances of the original confession, they had obtained evidence to corroborate what the Syrians had passed to them.
A separate inquiry is currently underway, under former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, into the cases of El Maati and two other men, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All three deny any terrorist links and suspect the RCMP and CSIS collaborated in their detention and torture abroad.
O'Connor has already cleared Arar, saying the RCMP wrongly labelled him a terrorist and passed that information to U.S. authorities, who in turn used it to arrest him and deport him. The judge found no evidence, however, that Canadian intelligence or police officers directly collaborated in the decision to send Arar to Syria.
The Conservative government has since apologized to Arar and paid him $10.5 million in compensation. He has launched a separate legal action south of the border, seeking damages from the U.S. government, which continues to keep his name on a terrorism watch list despite the findings in Canada.
KEY ARAR DATES
Sept. 26, 2002: Arar arrives at JFK Airport in New York City, on a flight from Zurich, headed for Montreal. He is detained by U.S. authorities, questioned, told he is inadmissible to the United States and asked where he would like to go. He says Canada.
Oct. 4, 2002: Arar is visited by Maureen Girvan, a Canadian consular officer in New York. She later says she never thought the Americans would send him anywhere except home to Canada.
Oct. 8, 2002: Arar is taken from his cell at 3 a.m. and told by American officials he is being deported to Syria.
Oct. 9, 2002: The plane lands in Jordan and Arar is quickly transferred by car to Damascus where he is to be jailed.
Oct. 10, 2002: Arar gets his first look at a cell he describes as being the size of a grave. He is to spend most of the next 10 months there. In Ottawa, the deputy director of CSIS, not knowing where Arar is, states in a memorandum: "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him.''
Oct. 11, 2002: Arar is tortured for the first time, beaten on his palms, wrists, lower back and hips with an electrical cable. He confesses -- falsely -- to terrorist training in Afghanistan.
Oct. 23, 2002: Arar meets Canadian consul Leo Martel for the first time. The beatings have lessened since he was first jailed.
April 23, 2003: Arar meets Canadian ambassador Franco Pillarella and two visiting Canadian MPs, Marlene Catterall and Sarkis Assadourian.
Aug. 14, 2003: Routine consular visits resume after a long interruption. Arar describes his living conditions and later says he told the consul he had been tortured.
Aug. 23, 2003: Arar is blindfolded, put in a car and driven to a new prison. His treatment improves and there is no further torture. He is no longer held in solitary confinement and can mix with other prisoners.
Oct. 4, 2003: After days of anticipating further interrogation, Arar is told instead that he will be going home to Canada. He doesn't believe it.
Oct. 5, 2003: Arar is taken to meet a prosecutor who reads out a confession of his supposed terrorist past and tells him to sign it without giving him a chance to read it. He is then taken to meet the head of Syrian military intelligence, who has been joined by Canadian officials for the occasion. Arar is freed and put on a plane to Canada.
Feb. 5, 2004: Government sets up a formal inquiry under Justice Dennis O'Connor to look into the whole Arar case.
Sept. 18, 2006: Justice O'Connor's report exonerates Arar of any wrongdoing, says inexperienced RCMP investigators wrongly gave inaccurate, unfair and overstated evidence about Arar's alleged terrorist leanings.
Jan. 26, 2007: Federal government settles with Arar with $10.5 million, plus legal fees. Prime Minister Stephen Harper offers a formal apology.
July 24, 2007: Justice Simon Noel rules in Federal Court that some previously secret findings of the commission must be revealed after commission counsel challenged a government decision to censor 1,500 words from O'Connor report.
July 26, 2007: Inquiry officials announce that despite the fact not all 1,500 censored words were opened to the public, they will not appeal federal Court decision; other parties to the inquiry follow suit.
Aug. 3, 2007: Deadline for federal attorney general appeal of decision passes.
Aug. 9, 2007: Censored words and passages are released, indicating Canadian security officials suspected that Arar had been shipped off to a third country by U.S. officials to be tortured.
CANADIAN PRESS
Monday, August 13, 2007
RCMP defends its actions in Arar affair
The RCMP knew very well that the information from El Maati was probably the result of torture but used it any way. If the RCMP did not want to reveal its sources then it should not have used the information since it knew it might very well be tainted.
The RCMP and CSIS did nothing to alert the government about their suspicions that Arar was being rendered. They did nothing to help the government get Arar released either. In fact there were mysterious leakings of classified documents concerning Arar's confessions that made Arar look to be a terrorist. Very convenient.
RCMP defends its actions in the Arar affair
Updated Sun. Aug. 12 2007 12:10 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The RCMP is brushing aside suggestions it was wrong to rely on questionable intelligence obtained from abroad to support search and wiretap warrant applications in the case of Maher Arar and another Canadian of Arab origin held in Syria.
A Sept. 2006 report by Justice Dennis O'Connor said the RCMP wrongly labelled Arar a terrorist and passed that information to U.S. authorities, who then arrested Arar and deported him to Syria on Oct. 8, 2002.
On Thursday, newly-released documentary evidence compiled by a public inquiry showed Canada's spy agency suspected -- within two days of Arar's deportation -- that the United States was to ship Arar somewhere in the Middle East to face possible torture.
Canada was unaware at the time that Arar had already been "rendered" to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al Qaeda.
O'Connor concluded, in a section of his report that had also been secret until now, that the RCMP used information from an unnamed country to help obtain search warrants against several individuals in January 2002 -- as part of a wider anti-terrorist investigation known as Project A-O Canada.
Those details came out Thursday in the final disclosure of roughly 1,000 blacked-out words from the original 2006 report -- words which government lawyers argued would compromise national security, international relations or the defence of Canada if released.
Assistant RCMP Commissioner Mike McDonnell says Canada was keeping its word in keeping secret and acting upon intelligence information obtained relating to Arar.
"I think it's safe to say that all information comes with a caveat: that it's for our use and our use only and we protect the source," McDonnell said in an interview aired Sunday on CTV's Question Period, explaining the RCMP's view on why the information wasn't released.
"That's a common international practice, it's a common domestic practice on criminal intelligence -- that you need the other person's permission to act on that intelligence. The third party rule, it's called. So when we give our word to another agency that the information is for our use and our use alone, we prefer to protect that and keep our word."
But Marlys Edwardh, one of Arar's lawyers, blasted the Mounties for relying on intelligence obtained abroad -- possibly under torture -- to support search and wiretap warrant applications within Canada.
She told CTV's Question Period that obtaining a search warrant in Canada requires, under the Criminal Code, that a party swears to that information, and a judicial officer assesses whether or not it justifies a search.
But the information the RCMP used to obtain a warrant, said Edwardh, "was either entirely unevaluated or indeed was information that came directly from torture. And the RCMP in characterizing that information and putting it before a judge had really mischaracterized the strength of their case, mischaracterized the kind of inferences that were available.
"And quite frankly that undermines our administration of criminal justice in this country."
The O'Connor report found the RCMP included suspect evidence in an application for a wiretap warrant in September 2002. This time the information came from a purported confession by Ahmad El Maati, another Arab-Canadian who was interrogated in Damascus but later repudiated the statements he made there and said they were extracted under torture.
The RCMP acknowledged, in their affidavit, that El Maati had changed his story but suggested he could be lying in his claims of mistreatment as part of a "damage control'' effort. They also insisted that, whatever the circumstances of the original confession, they had obtained evidence to corroborate what the Syrians had passed to them.
A separate inquiry is currently under way, under former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, into the cases of El Maati and two other men: Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All three deny any terrorist links and suspect the RCMP and CSIS collaborated in their detention and torture abroad.
McDonnell would not answer questions as to why the RCMP wasn't more forthcoming before the judge about Syria's poor human rights record or possible use of torture in extracting information.
"Justice Iacobucci has an inquiry into those events, and I wouldn't want to pre-empt his work in any manner," he told Question Period.
McDonnell said since the Arar affair, the RCMP has made substantial changes to its policy and procedures regarding information handling and sharing.
"This includes the creation of a Sensitive Document Handling Unit at RCMP headquarters, which will ensure criminal intelligence is properly vetted and controlled."
When asked why such a system wasn't already in place before the Arar affair, McDonnell replied that police and intelligence agencies in the West just weren't prepared for the terrorist events that were to happen in 2001.
"I think the whole Western world was taken aback by the events of 9/11 and I don't know any of our allies that were prepared for this event, any police agency or intelligence agency that was prepared for such an event," he said.
"I think to be fair we have to look at the context of the times. We just suffered a horrendous attack and everyone was working to stop another one."
O'Connor's report did not find that CSIS, which hasn't yet commented on the new report, alerted the government at the time it suspected Arar would be deported. Critics say this oversight suggests collusion between Canadian and U.S. security authorities in the ordeal Arar ultimately faced in Syria.
Edwardh told Question Period the fact CSIS did nothing with the information they had suggests "rendering" was something the agency supported.
"They did not come forward to any political person in Ottawa, they didn't' seek access or give information to cabinet. Certainly we didn't see anything like that and one can only conclude that knowing what they knew and doing nothing served their interests and supported the U.S."
With files from The Canadian Press
The RCMP and CSIS did nothing to alert the government about their suspicions that Arar was being rendered. They did nothing to help the government get Arar released either. In fact there were mysterious leakings of classified documents concerning Arar's confessions that made Arar look to be a terrorist. Very convenient.
RCMP defends its actions in the Arar affair
Updated Sun. Aug. 12 2007 12:10 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The RCMP is brushing aside suggestions it was wrong to rely on questionable intelligence obtained from abroad to support search and wiretap warrant applications in the case of Maher Arar and another Canadian of Arab origin held in Syria.
A Sept. 2006 report by Justice Dennis O'Connor said the RCMP wrongly labelled Arar a terrorist and passed that information to U.S. authorities, who then arrested Arar and deported him to Syria on Oct. 8, 2002.
On Thursday, newly-released documentary evidence compiled by a public inquiry showed Canada's spy agency suspected -- within two days of Arar's deportation -- that the United States was to ship Arar somewhere in the Middle East to face possible torture.
Canada was unaware at the time that Arar had already been "rendered" to Syria, where he was tortured into false confessions of links to al Qaeda.
O'Connor concluded, in a section of his report that had also been secret until now, that the RCMP used information from an unnamed country to help obtain search warrants against several individuals in January 2002 -- as part of a wider anti-terrorist investigation known as Project A-O Canada.
Those details came out Thursday in the final disclosure of roughly 1,000 blacked-out words from the original 2006 report -- words which government lawyers argued would compromise national security, international relations or the defence of Canada if released.
Assistant RCMP Commissioner Mike McDonnell says Canada was keeping its word in keeping secret and acting upon intelligence information obtained relating to Arar.
"I think it's safe to say that all information comes with a caveat: that it's for our use and our use only and we protect the source," McDonnell said in an interview aired Sunday on CTV's Question Period, explaining the RCMP's view on why the information wasn't released.
"That's a common international practice, it's a common domestic practice on criminal intelligence -- that you need the other person's permission to act on that intelligence. The third party rule, it's called. So when we give our word to another agency that the information is for our use and our use alone, we prefer to protect that and keep our word."
But Marlys Edwardh, one of Arar's lawyers, blasted the Mounties for relying on intelligence obtained abroad -- possibly under torture -- to support search and wiretap warrant applications within Canada.
She told CTV's Question Period that obtaining a search warrant in Canada requires, under the Criminal Code, that a party swears to that information, and a judicial officer assesses whether or not it justifies a search.
But the information the RCMP used to obtain a warrant, said Edwardh, "was either entirely unevaluated or indeed was information that came directly from torture. And the RCMP in characterizing that information and putting it before a judge had really mischaracterized the strength of their case, mischaracterized the kind of inferences that were available.
"And quite frankly that undermines our administration of criminal justice in this country."
The O'Connor report found the RCMP included suspect evidence in an application for a wiretap warrant in September 2002. This time the information came from a purported confession by Ahmad El Maati, another Arab-Canadian who was interrogated in Damascus but later repudiated the statements he made there and said they were extracted under torture.
The RCMP acknowledged, in their affidavit, that El Maati had changed his story but suggested he could be lying in his claims of mistreatment as part of a "damage control'' effort. They also insisted that, whatever the circumstances of the original confession, they had obtained evidence to corroborate what the Syrians had passed to them.
A separate inquiry is currently under way, under former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, into the cases of El Maati and two other men: Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All three deny any terrorist links and suspect the RCMP and CSIS collaborated in their detention and torture abroad.
McDonnell would not answer questions as to why the RCMP wasn't more forthcoming before the judge about Syria's poor human rights record or possible use of torture in extracting information.
"Justice Iacobucci has an inquiry into those events, and I wouldn't want to pre-empt his work in any manner," he told Question Period.
McDonnell said since the Arar affair, the RCMP has made substantial changes to its policy and procedures regarding information handling and sharing.
"This includes the creation of a Sensitive Document Handling Unit at RCMP headquarters, which will ensure criminal intelligence is properly vetted and controlled."
When asked why such a system wasn't already in place before the Arar affair, McDonnell replied that police and intelligence agencies in the West just weren't prepared for the terrorist events that were to happen in 2001.
"I think the whole Western world was taken aback by the events of 9/11 and I don't know any of our allies that were prepared for this event, any police agency or intelligence agency that was prepared for such an event," he said.
"I think to be fair we have to look at the context of the times. We just suffered a horrendous attack and everyone was working to stop another one."
O'Connor's report did not find that CSIS, which hasn't yet commented on the new report, alerted the government at the time it suspected Arar would be deported. Critics say this oversight suggests collusion between Canadian and U.S. security authorities in the ordeal Arar ultimately faced in Syria.
Edwardh told Question Period the fact CSIS did nothing with the information they had suggests "rendering" was something the agency supported.
"They did not come forward to any political person in Ottawa, they didn't' seek access or give information to cabinet. Certainly we didn't see anything like that and one can only conclude that knowing what they knew and doing nothing served their interests and supported the U.S."
With files from The Canadian Press
Friday, August 10, 2007
Ottawa sacrificed Arar to save face with US, Syria
Ibbitson puts it all quite succinctly:National security my ass. Foreign Affairs, CSIS and especially the RCMP were simply trying to keep hidden their incompetent, duplicitous, disgraceful handling of the Arar file. And they're still at it.
The are still at it in the Iacobucci inquiry and they are still denying others such as Benatta any possibility of justice. All the while some Canadians are busy on the Great Wall protesting Chinese violations of Tibetan rights. Fine but why ignore what is going on here in our own backyard.
THE ARAR REPORT: BEHIND THE COURT ORDER
Ottawa sacrificed Arar to save face with U.S., Syria
JOHN IBBITSON
August 10, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The federal government fought like blazes to keep the fact that the CIA sent Maher Arar to Syria from you - they fought so hard that it took a court order for you to hear it - because Ottawa doesn't want to lose face with the Americans, or the Syrians for that matter.
To preserve their trust, our government was prepared to sacrifice the trust of its own citizens. What are we to make of such a thing?
The blacked-out lines of Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's report that are now available for all to see offer little that should surprise.
Of course the Central Intelligence Agency was at the heart of the decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. That's what the CIA does. We already knew - because the inquiry report describes it in grim detail - that Canadian intelligence and justice officials were feeding the Americans wrong information, though we now know that some of that wrong information came from Syria, where it had been pried under duress from another Syrian-Canadian, Ahmad Abou El Maati.
And we discover that at least one Canadian official warned his colleagues, after Mr. Arar had already been deported, that the Yanks probably wanted to send him somewhere where he could be tortured.
Big deal.
And yet the federal government refused to disclose this information, which Judge O'Connor wanted to make public, until a Federal Court judge ordered it to, because intelligence agencies will go to any length to avoid identifying each other as sources.
There is good reason to accept such secrecy as the necessary price of vigilance. Perhaps the single most important accomplishment of the American and Canadian governments in this decade has been preventing a second terrorist attack from occurring on either country's soil.
Since it is the first duty of government to secure the safety of its citizens, Ottawa and Washington deserve praise for carrying out that duty.
It also seemed reasonable for the federal government to insist that some portions of the Arar inquiry report be kept from the public.
There was always the risk that the inquiry could undermine trust and ease of communication between American and Canadian security and intelligence officials. That trust is crucial to strengthening the perimeter and to detecting and deterring future threats.
But the revelations of Judge O'Connor's report revealed greater concerns: the ineptness of the RCMP in managing the information it had on Mr. Arar; (the very ease of communication that many of us feared would be compromised by the inquiry was proved not to exist during the Arar affair); the great danger in which the force placed Mr. Arar by transmitting that information to the Americans without the proper caveats, and then the mendacity the Mounties employed in trying to cover up their responsibility.
By the time the report's findings were digested, the risk of damage to Canada's reputation among the spying fraternity was the least of our concerns. The more vital task was to restore Canadians' faith in the probity of their government and national police force.
For Ottawa to then fight to keep the public from hearing of the CIA's involvement in the affair - especially when any reasonable reader of the report could have deduced that involvement - shows that it is still more interested in international proprieties than in telling the truth to the Canadian people.
It is ludicrous to suppose that Canadian-American relations have been damaged because the CIA has been outed by the O'Connor report. That troubled American intelligence service already has enough on its plate right now.
The only real damage the federal government has done, through both Liberal and Conservative administrations, is to itself. There are things about the Arar affair that you can't be told, our government informed us, for reasons of national security.
National security my ass. Foreign Affairs, CSIS and especially the RCMP were simply trying to keep hidden their incompetent, duplicitous, disgraceful handling of the Arar file. And they're still at it.
Why should anyone trust anything that our government says about Maher Arar any more?
The are still at it in the Iacobucci inquiry and they are still denying others such as Benatta any possibility of justice. All the while some Canadians are busy on the Great Wall protesting Chinese violations of Tibetan rights. Fine but why ignore what is going on here in our own backyard.
THE ARAR REPORT: BEHIND THE COURT ORDER
Ottawa sacrificed Arar to save face with U.S., Syria
JOHN IBBITSON
August 10, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The federal government fought like blazes to keep the fact that the CIA sent Maher Arar to Syria from you - they fought so hard that it took a court order for you to hear it - because Ottawa doesn't want to lose face with the Americans, or the Syrians for that matter.
To preserve their trust, our government was prepared to sacrifice the trust of its own citizens. What are we to make of such a thing?
The blacked-out lines of Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's report that are now available for all to see offer little that should surprise.
Of course the Central Intelligence Agency was at the heart of the decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. That's what the CIA does. We already knew - because the inquiry report describes it in grim detail - that Canadian intelligence and justice officials were feeding the Americans wrong information, though we now know that some of that wrong information came from Syria, where it had been pried under duress from another Syrian-Canadian, Ahmad Abou El Maati.
And we discover that at least one Canadian official warned his colleagues, after Mr. Arar had already been deported, that the Yanks probably wanted to send him somewhere where he could be tortured.
Big deal.
And yet the federal government refused to disclose this information, which Judge O'Connor wanted to make public, until a Federal Court judge ordered it to, because intelligence agencies will go to any length to avoid identifying each other as sources.
There is good reason to accept such secrecy as the necessary price of vigilance. Perhaps the single most important accomplishment of the American and Canadian governments in this decade has been preventing a second terrorist attack from occurring on either country's soil.
Since it is the first duty of government to secure the safety of its citizens, Ottawa and Washington deserve praise for carrying out that duty.
It also seemed reasonable for the federal government to insist that some portions of the Arar inquiry report be kept from the public.
There was always the risk that the inquiry could undermine trust and ease of communication between American and Canadian security and intelligence officials. That trust is crucial to strengthening the perimeter and to detecting and deterring future threats.
But the revelations of Judge O'Connor's report revealed greater concerns: the ineptness of the RCMP in managing the information it had on Mr. Arar; (the very ease of communication that many of us feared would be compromised by the inquiry was proved not to exist during the Arar affair); the great danger in which the force placed Mr. Arar by transmitting that information to the Americans without the proper caveats, and then the mendacity the Mounties employed in trying to cover up their responsibility.
By the time the report's findings were digested, the risk of damage to Canada's reputation among the spying fraternity was the least of our concerns. The more vital task was to restore Canadians' faith in the probity of their government and national police force.
For Ottawa to then fight to keep the public from hearing of the CIA's involvement in the affair - especially when any reasonable reader of the report could have deduced that involvement - shows that it is still more interested in international proprieties than in telling the truth to the Canadian people.
It is ludicrous to suppose that Canadian-American relations have been damaged because the CIA has been outed by the O'Connor report. That troubled American intelligence service already has enough on its plate right now.
The only real damage the federal government has done, through both Liberal and Conservative administrations, is to itself. There are things about the Arar affair that you can't be told, our government informed us, for reasons of national security.
National security my ass. Foreign Affairs, CSIS and especially the RCMP were simply trying to keep hidden their incompetent, duplicitous, disgraceful handling of the Arar file. And they're still at it.
Why should anyone trust anything that our government says about Maher Arar any more?
Thursday, August 9, 2007
New Documents released relating to Arar report.
O'Connor had to go to court to get these parts of his report released to the public and not all of the blacked out parts are released. These documents deal with Canadian suspicions about US policy. In other testimony CSIS kept claiming they had no idea that the US would send Arar anywhere except to Canada. The CSIS also used info they knew or should have known was produced through torture to get wiretap permissions to bug Arar's phone. The judge was given no clue. Also, the CSIS did nothing to help get Arar released even though they knew that he would probably be tortured. In effect that CSIS probably agrees with the "firm" interrogation even though they would never say so publicly. The documents released show a government eager to avoid any revelations of the faults of their security forces or that might embarass the US.
There is no mention in either article of the Iacobucci inquiry but that inquiry represents this sort of secrecy raised to the nth degree. It is an inquiry which in no way allows the Al Malki, El Maati, or Nureddin to clear their names as Arar was able to do. It will not allow them or their lawyers to take part in the secret sessions in which CSIS and other officials will be questioned. Already one lawyer has taken the issue to court to challenge the fact that almost none of the inquiry will be in public. So much for transparency and accountability. No one has ever been punished for what happened to Arar and there will be no punishment of any intelligence officials arising from the Iacobucci inquiry. Of course the inquiry itself has no power to punish but even if wrongdoing is found nothing will happen.
CSIS suspected U.S. would deport Arar to be tortured: documents
Last Updated: Thursday, August 9, 2007 | 12:19 PM ET
CBC News
Previously blacked-out portions of the Maher Arar report state that Canadian security officials believed the United States might send the Syrian-born Canadian to a foreign country to be questioned under torture.
"I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him," a Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer based in Washington wrote in a report dated Oct. 10, 2002, according to documents released Thursday.
The note was written days after the United States deported Arar, who was returning to Canada from a vacation in 2002 when he was detained during a flight stopover in New York, wrongly accused of links with al-Qaeda and sent to Syria, where he was jailed for months and tortured.
The newly released documents also say the CSIS operative "spoke of a trend they had noted lately that when the CIA or FBI cannot legally hold a terrorist subject, or wish a target questioned in a firm manner, they have them rendered to countries willing to fulfill that role. He said Mr. Arar was a case in point."
Arar's lawyer, Marlys Edwardh, said Thursday that CSIS did nothing to communicate this information to Canada's political leaders.
"In fact, they sat on it," Edwardh told CBC News.
Another of Arar's lawyers, Lorne Waldman, said the new information "now confirms that as of two days after Mr. Arar was sent to Syria, the Canadian government was aware that it was very likely he was going to be tortured when he was there."
Arar and his wife, Monia Mazigh, were not commenting publicly Thursday on the release of the documents.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on a trip to the Arctic, side-stepped the issue of whether he would again raise the Arar case with Washington in light of the latest findings. He also once again noted to reporters that the mistreatment of Arar occurred under the previous Liberal government.
"This government has committed to implementing all of the recommendations of this report to ensure the events that occurred under the Liberals are not replicated for other Canadian citizens," Harper said.
Canada used info from countries with poor rights records
The Arar commission released its report in September 2006, but about 1,500 words were blacked out because the federal government argued the passages would reveal national security secrets, including some received from foreign agencies. The censored portions represent less than one per cent of the lengthy report from the inquiry.
The blacked-out portions of the report were released Thursday on the July order of a Federal Court judge.
'Our law is very clear. You cannot use evidence that is the product of torture [to obtain a warrant].'
—Arar commission lawyer Paul CavalluzzoThe newly-released portions also state that Canadian authorities relied on a country with a poor record on human rights for information to obtain a search warrant. The disclosed portions said investigators did not disclose that the information used to get the warrants "might be the product of torture."
Paul Cavalluzzo, the lead lawyer for the Arar commission, said Thursday that he hoped the release of the censored information would force law enforcement agencies to be "totally candid" when they go before a judge to obtain a warrant.
"Our law is very clear," Cavalluzzo said. "You cannot use evidence that is the product of torture [to obtain a warrant]."
Many of the blacked-out words refer to Canadian contacts with U.S. security services — the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Both Arar and the inquiry's commissioner, Dennis O'Connor, had argued before the Federal Court judge at hearings in the spring that the public should see the document in its entirety.
In July, Justice Simon Noël ruled that some, but not all, of the excised information should be revealed. He said public interest was best served by keeping the rest of the document secret.
The inquiry found that the RCMP wrongly labelled Arar a terrorist and passed the misleading information to U.S. authorities, where it led to Arar being linked to al-Qaeda and deported to Syria.
O'Connor, associate chief justice of Ontario, cleared Arar of any links to terrorist organizations, and the federal government agreed to pay Arar $12.5 million in compensation.
Now the Canwest article:
Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, August 09, 2007 Article tools
Printer friendly
E-mail
Font: * * * * OTTAWA — Canadian security officials suspected that Maher Arar would be questioned “in a firm manner” when the Americans deported the Ottawa engineer to his birth country of Syria, newly declassified portions of an investigative report into the incident revealed Thursday.
“I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him,” Jack Hooper, assistant director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, wrote in a memo described in newly disclosed passages of the Arar report.
A censored version of the report by a commission of inquiry headed by Justice Dennis O’Connor was published last September. The government ordered that some information be blacked out so as to safeguard national security, defence and international relations. Last month, the Federal Court ordered that more of the information be disclosed, ruling that it would be in the public’s interest and not harmful to the country.
Suspected of terrorist ties, Arar was flown to Jordan and from there to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year and tortured before being released and returned to Canada. O’Connor’s report unequivocally cleared him of all terrorist links.
The newly uncensored passages also reveal that the CSIS security liaison officer in Washington, in a memo to his superiors two days after Arar’s deportation, “spoke of a trend they had noted lately when the CIA or FBI cannot legally hold a terrorist suspect, or wish a target questioned in a firm manner, they have them rendered to countries willing to fulfil that role.” Arar, he said, was “a case in point.”
Arar’s lawyer, Lorne Waldman, described the declassified sections as “shocking and disturbing.” He accused the government of abuse of power for trying to shield information from the public for a year in the name of national security. “What we’re really seeing is the government withholding information because it is embarrassing,” said Waldman.
The more complete report also reveals that a Canadian security team, which visited Syria in November 2002, concluded that officials there “did not appear to view this as a major case and seemed to look upon the matter as more of a nuisance than anything else.”
Because of its blacked-out passages, the initial version of the report appeared to put the lion’s share of blame on the RCMP, while CSIS escaped virtually unscathed. The original version also deleted mention of the CIA and the FBI.
CSIS spokesman Giovanni Cotroneo refused comment on the new revelations. He stressed, however, that the report concluded that the security officials neither participated nor acquiesced in the U.S. decision to send Arar to Syria.
The new version also places more blame on the Mounties, revealing that an RCMP anti-terrorism squad, in seeking search warrants in early 2002, failed to reveal to the presiding judge that the information came from an unnamed country with a poor human rights record or that it may have been obtained through torture.
In September 2002, the Mounties also kept a judge in the dark while seeking a warrant to wiretap Arar’s phone, failing to mention that their information came from an uncorroborated confession by terror suspect Ahmad El Maati, which was likely obtained under torture in Syria.
“The candor was lacking and that’s very significant because we rely on our agencies, when dealing with national security investigations, to be truthful when seeking warrants,” said Waldman. “You ask yourself, given that CSIS possessed all this information, that they didn’t vigourously move to get Arar returned and in fact opposed his return.”
Waldman called on the federal government to immediately implement the Arar report recommendation to set up two independent oversight bodies to monitor the RCMP, CSIS and other agencies involved in national security.
Although the censored information represents less than one per cent of the 1,200-page report, Paul Cavalluzzo, the Arar commission lawyer, said the issue goes to the heart of government accountability.
He denounced the RCMP’s failure to disclose information in court, in particular, as an affront to the justice system because applications for national security warrants take place in a closed courtroom with a judge only hearing the government’s side before making a decision.
Arar was arrested by U.S. authorities in September 2002 while travelling through New York on his way back to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia.
The report concluded that his deportation was “very likely” the result of an inexperienced RCMP anti-terrorism squad passing on false intelligence to the U.S. that labelled Arar and his wife “Islamic extremists.”
Former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli was forced to resign in the wake of the Arar report after he publicly changed his story on what he knew and when he knew it.
Arar was given a formal apology from the federal government earlier this year, along with $10.5 million in compensation for his ordeal.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday it is up to Liberal Leader Stephane Dion to explain the Arar affair to the public.
“Let’s be clear, we’re talking about events that occurred under the previous government,” Harper told reporters in Yellowknife. “So I would suggest to you that in terms of asking what actually happened, those questions would be best directed to Mr. Dion.”
Harper added that Arar has been compensated for his ordeal and reiterated that the government intends to implement all the recommendations in the Arar report.
© CanWest News Service 2007
There is no mention in either article of the Iacobucci inquiry but that inquiry represents this sort of secrecy raised to the nth degree. It is an inquiry which in no way allows the Al Malki, El Maati, or Nureddin to clear their names as Arar was able to do. It will not allow them or their lawyers to take part in the secret sessions in which CSIS and other officials will be questioned. Already one lawyer has taken the issue to court to challenge the fact that almost none of the inquiry will be in public. So much for transparency and accountability. No one has ever been punished for what happened to Arar and there will be no punishment of any intelligence officials arising from the Iacobucci inquiry. Of course the inquiry itself has no power to punish but even if wrongdoing is found nothing will happen.
CSIS suspected U.S. would deport Arar to be tortured: documents
Last Updated: Thursday, August 9, 2007 | 12:19 PM ET
CBC News
Previously blacked-out portions of the Maher Arar report state that Canadian security officials believed the United States might send the Syrian-born Canadian to a foreign country to be questioned under torture.
"I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him," a Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer based in Washington wrote in a report dated Oct. 10, 2002, according to documents released Thursday.
The note was written days after the United States deported Arar, who was returning to Canada from a vacation in 2002 when he was detained during a flight stopover in New York, wrongly accused of links with al-Qaeda and sent to Syria, where he was jailed for months and tortured.
The newly released documents also say the CSIS operative "spoke of a trend they had noted lately that when the CIA or FBI cannot legally hold a terrorist subject, or wish a target questioned in a firm manner, they have them rendered to countries willing to fulfill that role. He said Mr. Arar was a case in point."
Arar's lawyer, Marlys Edwardh, said Thursday that CSIS did nothing to communicate this information to Canada's political leaders.
"In fact, they sat on it," Edwardh told CBC News.
Another of Arar's lawyers, Lorne Waldman, said the new information "now confirms that as of two days after Mr. Arar was sent to Syria, the Canadian government was aware that it was very likely he was going to be tortured when he was there."
Arar and his wife, Monia Mazigh, were not commenting publicly Thursday on the release of the documents.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on a trip to the Arctic, side-stepped the issue of whether he would again raise the Arar case with Washington in light of the latest findings. He also once again noted to reporters that the mistreatment of Arar occurred under the previous Liberal government.
"This government has committed to implementing all of the recommendations of this report to ensure the events that occurred under the Liberals are not replicated for other Canadian citizens," Harper said.
Canada used info from countries with poor rights records
The Arar commission released its report in September 2006, but about 1,500 words were blacked out because the federal government argued the passages would reveal national security secrets, including some received from foreign agencies. The censored portions represent less than one per cent of the lengthy report from the inquiry.
The blacked-out portions of the report were released Thursday on the July order of a Federal Court judge.
'Our law is very clear. You cannot use evidence that is the product of torture [to obtain a warrant].'
—Arar commission lawyer Paul CavalluzzoThe newly-released portions also state that Canadian authorities relied on a country with a poor record on human rights for information to obtain a search warrant. The disclosed portions said investigators did not disclose that the information used to get the warrants "might be the product of torture."
Paul Cavalluzzo, the lead lawyer for the Arar commission, said Thursday that he hoped the release of the censored information would force law enforcement agencies to be "totally candid" when they go before a judge to obtain a warrant.
"Our law is very clear," Cavalluzzo said. "You cannot use evidence that is the product of torture [to obtain a warrant]."
Many of the blacked-out words refer to Canadian contacts with U.S. security services — the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Both Arar and the inquiry's commissioner, Dennis O'Connor, had argued before the Federal Court judge at hearings in the spring that the public should see the document in its entirety.
In July, Justice Simon Noël ruled that some, but not all, of the excised information should be revealed. He said public interest was best served by keeping the rest of the document secret.
The inquiry found that the RCMP wrongly labelled Arar a terrorist and passed the misleading information to U.S. authorities, where it led to Arar being linked to al-Qaeda and deported to Syria.
O'Connor, associate chief justice of Ontario, cleared Arar of any links to terrorist organizations, and the federal government agreed to pay Arar $12.5 million in compensation.
Now the Canwest article:
Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, August 09, 2007 Article tools
Printer friendly
Font: * * * * OTTAWA — Canadian security officials suspected that Maher Arar would be questioned “in a firm manner” when the Americans deported the Ottawa engineer to his birth country of Syria, newly declassified portions of an investigative report into the incident revealed Thursday.
“I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him,” Jack Hooper, assistant director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, wrote in a memo described in newly disclosed passages of the Arar report.
A censored version of the report by a commission of inquiry headed by Justice Dennis O’Connor was published last September. The government ordered that some information be blacked out so as to safeguard national security, defence and international relations. Last month, the Federal Court ordered that more of the information be disclosed, ruling that it would be in the public’s interest and not harmful to the country.
Suspected of terrorist ties, Arar was flown to Jordan and from there to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year and tortured before being released and returned to Canada. O’Connor’s report unequivocally cleared him of all terrorist links.
The newly uncensored passages also reveal that the CSIS security liaison officer in Washington, in a memo to his superiors two days after Arar’s deportation, “spoke of a trend they had noted lately when the CIA or FBI cannot legally hold a terrorist suspect, or wish a target questioned in a firm manner, they have them rendered to countries willing to fulfil that role.” Arar, he said, was “a case in point.”
Arar’s lawyer, Lorne Waldman, described the declassified sections as “shocking and disturbing.” He accused the government of abuse of power for trying to shield information from the public for a year in the name of national security. “What we’re really seeing is the government withholding information because it is embarrassing,” said Waldman.
The more complete report also reveals that a Canadian security team, which visited Syria in November 2002, concluded that officials there “did not appear to view this as a major case and seemed to look upon the matter as more of a nuisance than anything else.”
Because of its blacked-out passages, the initial version of the report appeared to put the lion’s share of blame on the RCMP, while CSIS escaped virtually unscathed. The original version also deleted mention of the CIA and the FBI.
CSIS spokesman Giovanni Cotroneo refused comment on the new revelations. He stressed, however, that the report concluded that the security officials neither participated nor acquiesced in the U.S. decision to send Arar to Syria.
The new version also places more blame on the Mounties, revealing that an RCMP anti-terrorism squad, in seeking search warrants in early 2002, failed to reveal to the presiding judge that the information came from an unnamed country with a poor human rights record or that it may have been obtained through torture.
In September 2002, the Mounties also kept a judge in the dark while seeking a warrant to wiretap Arar’s phone, failing to mention that their information came from an uncorroborated confession by terror suspect Ahmad El Maati, which was likely obtained under torture in Syria.
“The candor was lacking and that’s very significant because we rely on our agencies, when dealing with national security investigations, to be truthful when seeking warrants,” said Waldman. “You ask yourself, given that CSIS possessed all this information, that they didn’t vigourously move to get Arar returned and in fact opposed his return.”
Waldman called on the federal government to immediately implement the Arar report recommendation to set up two independent oversight bodies to monitor the RCMP, CSIS and other agencies involved in national security.
Although the censored information represents less than one per cent of the 1,200-page report, Paul Cavalluzzo, the Arar commission lawyer, said the issue goes to the heart of government accountability.
He denounced the RCMP’s failure to disclose information in court, in particular, as an affront to the justice system because applications for national security warrants take place in a closed courtroom with a judge only hearing the government’s side before making a decision.
Arar was arrested by U.S. authorities in September 2002 while travelling through New York on his way back to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia.
The report concluded that his deportation was “very likely” the result of an inexperienced RCMP anti-terrorism squad passing on false intelligence to the U.S. that labelled Arar and his wife “Islamic extremists.”
Former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli was forced to resign in the wake of the Arar report after he publicly changed his story on what he knew and when he knew it.
Arar was given a formal apology from the federal government earlier this year, along with $10.5 million in compensation for his ordeal.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday it is up to Liberal Leader Stephane Dion to explain the Arar affair to the public.
“Let’s be clear, we’re talking about events that occurred under the previous government,” Harper told reporters in Yellowknife. “So I would suggest to you that in terms of asking what actually happened, those questions would be best directed to Mr. Dion.”
Harper added that Arar has been compensated for his ordeal and reiterated that the government intends to implement all the recommendations in the Arar report.
© CanWest News Service 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
RCMP "tightens" the intelligence standard.
This is unadulterated rhetorical garbage. The tightening is simply applying the norms that were already in place but that were not followed in the Arar case because the RCMP thought that the rules about vetting and placing caveats on the use of data were not in play. At least that is what the RCMP claimed but CSIS claimed otherwise. How the RCMP can be assured that the FBI always follows the rules about caveats is anyone's guess. It is again just saying the right thing.
NATIONAL SECURITY
RCMP tightens intelligence standard
COLIN FREEZE
June 20, 2007
The RCMP is assuring Parliament that it has officially entered a post-Arar world.
Senators asked a top Mountie this week whether dubious intelligence from Canada could ever again be used by the United States to deport a suspect to a third country to face torture.
It was precisely this scenario, in 2002, that appears to have led to the Maher Arar affair and its fallout.
Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell testified that terrorism investigations are now highly centralized within his office, where he and his officials carefully examine all information input and output. He says the national security criminal investigations squad runs on discipline.
More National Stories
"We are very careful about staying within our mandate," the official repeatedly stressed to the Senate committee on national security. He added that he can even ensure international partners don't cross lines either.
"I am satisfied that in my dealings with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, my information will be protected and that I will be notified and consulted before any action is taken with respect to the information I provide to the bureau," Mr. McDonell testified.
"I am satisfied that, if I said the information could not be used in a certain way, we could work through that."
Five years ago, there was confusion about how information was gathered and how it was treated.
In 2002, Syrian-Canadian engineer Maher Arar was flagged as an "Islamic extremist" on an international no-fly list after the Mounties spotted him while monitoring another suspect.
When Mr. Arar passed through a New York airport, authorities there labelled him an al-Qaeda member and flew him in shackles to Syria, where he was detained for nearly a year.
A Canadian judge who spent years looking into this found that inaccurate information from Canada likely led to the engineer's ordeal.
Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor also found that Mr. Arar was tortured in Syria, though he had never represented any threat to Canadian national security.
Mr. McDonell says that today, the Mounties have "gotten out" of strategic intelligence work and left that job entirely to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
"We take our strategic national security priorities from the service," he told the Senate committee. "We do not produce them."
He added that most of Judge O'Connor's recommendations related to the Arar affair have been "fully implemented" by the Mounties.
In fact, "we were well on our way to that before the recommendations came out" last winter, he said.
NATIONAL SECURITY
RCMP tightens intelligence standard
COLIN FREEZE
June 20, 2007
The RCMP is assuring Parliament that it has officially entered a post-Arar world.
Senators asked a top Mountie this week whether dubious intelligence from Canada could ever again be used by the United States to deport a suspect to a third country to face torture.
It was precisely this scenario, in 2002, that appears to have led to the Maher Arar affair and its fallout.
Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell testified that terrorism investigations are now highly centralized within his office, where he and his officials carefully examine all information input and output. He says the national security criminal investigations squad runs on discipline.
More National Stories
"We are very careful about staying within our mandate," the official repeatedly stressed to the Senate committee on national security. He added that he can even ensure international partners don't cross lines either.
"I am satisfied that in my dealings with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, my information will be protected and that I will be notified and consulted before any action is taken with respect to the information I provide to the bureau," Mr. McDonell testified.
"I am satisfied that, if I said the information could not be used in a certain way, we could work through that."
Five years ago, there was confusion about how information was gathered and how it was treated.
In 2002, Syrian-Canadian engineer Maher Arar was flagged as an "Islamic extremist" on an international no-fly list after the Mounties spotted him while monitoring another suspect.
When Mr. Arar passed through a New York airport, authorities there labelled him an al-Qaeda member and flew him in shackles to Syria, where he was detained for nearly a year.
A Canadian judge who spent years looking into this found that inaccurate information from Canada likely led to the engineer's ordeal.
Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor also found that Mr. Arar was tortured in Syria, though he had never represented any threat to Canadian national security.
Mr. McDonell says that today, the Mounties have "gotten out" of strategic intelligence work and left that job entirely to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
"We take our strategic national security priorities from the service," he told the Senate committee. "We do not produce them."
He added that most of Judge O'Connor's recommendations related to the Arar affair have been "fully implemented" by the Mounties.
In fact, "we were well on our way to that before the recommendations came out" last winter, he said.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Turf Wars: CSIS and the RCMP
It seems that these turf wars are damaging intelligence operations. Problems of oversight of RCMP projects surfaced in the O'Connor report. CSIS did not provide proper direction and oversight of the RCMP project investigating Arar. There were gross failures by the CSIS in the Air India case as the mountie notes. What is common throughout both agencies is that no one seems ever to be punished for failures. Quite the opposite in the Arar case people who were involved in passing on false info on Arar or were involved in the investigation have been promoted.
Creation of CSIS made Canada less safe: ex-Mountie
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 7, 2007 | 4:53 PM ET
The Canadian Press
Stripping the RCMP of responsibility for intelligence-gathering and handing the job over to CSIS made Canada a more dangerous place, not a safer one, a former senior Mountie says.
Henry Jensen, testifying Wednesday at the public inquiry in Ottawa into the Air India bombing, stopped short of drawing a direct link between the creation of CSIS in 1984 and the terrorist attack that took place the following year.
But he painted a rosy picture of the way intelligence operations had been run under the RCMP, and contrasted that with the difficulties that plagued the new regime.
The assertions led Justice John Major, the head of the inquiry, to wonder whether things improved by the time Jensen retired from his post as deputy commissioner of the national police force in 1989.
"Was Canada a safer place as a result of CSIS being cut out of the RCMP?" the judge asked.
"You want my honest opinion?" Jensen replied. "No. I think Canada became a riskier place, certainly, in that period of time."
Rivalry between CSIS and the Mounties has been widely blamed for the failure to head off the Air India attack, and for recurring problems that dogged the criminal investigation that followed.
When Major raised the issue, Jensen was quick to absolve his former police colleagues and put the blame for precipitating the turf war squarely on the other side.
"Within the RCMP I did not notice that," he said. "With respect to the new CSIS organization, yes, I felt they believed that there was an issue [of] staking out their turf."
Others have been less charitable in assessing the role played by the RCMP in the conflict.
CSIS was spun off as a separate agency in 1984, after an inquiry by Justice David McDonald uncovered evidence that the old RCMP security service had committed criminal acts — including burning a barn and stealing dynamite — in the name of fighting Quebec separatism.
Limited by law
But the new intelligence agency was limited by law to collecting information and monitoring security threats. It had no authority to arrest anyone or lay criminal charges, powers that remained with the RCMP.
Jean-Paul Brodeur, a national security expert at the Université de Montreal, testified Wednesday that things were complicated by the fact that Robert Simmonds, then the RCMP commissioner, never really accepted his force's loss of the security role.
"The RCMP felt that terrorism was a crime and it belonged to them," Brodeur said. "So you had two investigative agencies that were competing against each other."
The crunch came barely a year after the creation of CSIS, when Air India Flight 182 was downed by a terrorist bomb in June 1985 with the loss of 329 lives.
The attack was blamed on militant Sikh separatists in British Columbia, but only one man was ever convicted for his role in the plot. Another was shot dead by Indian police in 1992 and two more were acquitted in Vancouver in 2005.
CSIS had some of the suspects under surveillance before the attack and shared much of its intelligence with the RCMP during the subsequent criminal investigation. But key wiretap tapes were erased, and other material couldn't meet the legal test for use in court.
Under one roof
Jensen, who was in charge of RCMP criminal operations for most of the 1980s, contended Wednesday that relations with intelligence officers were smoother when everyone worked under one roof at the RCMP.
"It was a co-operative arrangement," he told Major. "Our files were open to the security service [and] security service files were open to us."
Once CSIS was created, the Mounties signed a memorandum with the new agency that they hoped would ensure the same unfettered access. In Jensen's view, CSIS had a duty to turn over anything the RCMP needed for a criminal prosecution: "It was mandatory, not discretionary."
Major appeared to have trouble accepting that interpretation, noting that the whole point of creating CSIS was to separate intelligence powers from police powers.
Replied Jensen: "In its wisdom, the government of the day chose that path — and left us with the problems."
Creation of CSIS made Canada less safe: ex-Mountie
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 7, 2007 | 4:53 PM ET
The Canadian Press
Stripping the RCMP of responsibility for intelligence-gathering and handing the job over to CSIS made Canada a more dangerous place, not a safer one, a former senior Mountie says.
Henry Jensen, testifying Wednesday at the public inquiry in Ottawa into the Air India bombing, stopped short of drawing a direct link between the creation of CSIS in 1984 and the terrorist attack that took place the following year.
But he painted a rosy picture of the way intelligence operations had been run under the RCMP, and contrasted that with the difficulties that plagued the new regime.
The assertions led Justice John Major, the head of the inquiry, to wonder whether things improved by the time Jensen retired from his post as deputy commissioner of the national police force in 1989.
"Was Canada a safer place as a result of CSIS being cut out of the RCMP?" the judge asked.
"You want my honest opinion?" Jensen replied. "No. I think Canada became a riskier place, certainly, in that period of time."
Rivalry between CSIS and the Mounties has been widely blamed for the failure to head off the Air India attack, and for recurring problems that dogged the criminal investigation that followed.
When Major raised the issue, Jensen was quick to absolve his former police colleagues and put the blame for precipitating the turf war squarely on the other side.
"Within the RCMP I did not notice that," he said. "With respect to the new CSIS organization, yes, I felt they believed that there was an issue [of] staking out their turf."
Others have been less charitable in assessing the role played by the RCMP in the conflict.
CSIS was spun off as a separate agency in 1984, after an inquiry by Justice David McDonald uncovered evidence that the old RCMP security service had committed criminal acts — including burning a barn and stealing dynamite — in the name of fighting Quebec separatism.
Limited by law
But the new intelligence agency was limited by law to collecting information and monitoring security threats. It had no authority to arrest anyone or lay criminal charges, powers that remained with the RCMP.
Jean-Paul Brodeur, a national security expert at the Université de Montreal, testified Wednesday that things were complicated by the fact that Robert Simmonds, then the RCMP commissioner, never really accepted his force's loss of the security role.
"The RCMP felt that terrorism was a crime and it belonged to them," Brodeur said. "So you had two investigative agencies that were competing against each other."
The crunch came barely a year after the creation of CSIS, when Air India Flight 182 was downed by a terrorist bomb in June 1985 with the loss of 329 lives.
The attack was blamed on militant Sikh separatists in British Columbia, but only one man was ever convicted for his role in the plot. Another was shot dead by Indian police in 1992 and two more were acquitted in Vancouver in 2005.
CSIS had some of the suspects under surveillance before the attack and shared much of its intelligence with the RCMP during the subsequent criminal investigation. But key wiretap tapes were erased, and other material couldn't meet the legal test for use in court.
Under one roof
Jensen, who was in charge of RCMP criminal operations for most of the 1980s, contended Wednesday that relations with intelligence officers were smoother when everyone worked under one roof at the RCMP.
"It was a co-operative arrangement," he told Major. "Our files were open to the security service [and] security service files were open to us."
Once CSIS was created, the Mounties signed a memorandum with the new agency that they hoped would ensure the same unfettered access. In Jensen's view, CSIS had a duty to turn over anything the RCMP needed for a criminal prosecution: "It was mandatory, not discretionary."
Major appeared to have trouble accepting that interpretation, noting that the whole point of creating CSIS was to separate intelligence powers from police powers.
Replied Jensen: "In its wisdom, the government of the day chose that path — and left us with the problems."
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