Justice department wants most of Iacobucci Inquiry secret.

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


This article is from the Globe and Mail:

JUDICIAL INQUIRY

Men allegedly tortured reject secret proceedings
ALEX DOBROTA

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iacobucci to be "vigilant" about secrecy level.

While Iacobucci says he will hold some hearings in public it remains to be seen what the scope of them will be and how much of the other processes are made public. Most of this inquiry will be a meeting of the Torys LLP law firm with the Tories. Even much of the Arar report was heavily censored oftn against the wishes of Justice O'Connor.

Terror inquiry head to be "vigilant’ about secrecy level

By The Canadian Press




OTTAWA — Former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci is promising to dig into the roles played by the RCMP and CSIS in the arrest and torture abroad of three Canadians accused of consorting with terrorists at home.

But the public may never see most of the details he unearths, because of tight restrictions placed on the inquiry in the name of national security.

In an opening statement Wednesday, Iacobucci acknowledged his work will "generally" be done behind closed doors under the terms of reference laid out for him by the Conservative government.

He expressed hope, however, that the secrecy won’t undermine public confidence in the proceedings.

"It was a condition of my accepting the role of commissioner that this is to be an independent inquiry," he said. "Having been a judge for some 17 years, I have a profound respect for the principles of independence and acting in the public interest."

Iacobucci went on to pledge to be "as vigilant as I can to ensure that the inquiry is as independent, thorough and fair as it can possibly be under the circumstances."

At issue are the ordeals of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, all Canadian citizens of Muslim extraction who adamantly deny any terrorist links. They say their detention and mistreatment in Syria and Egypt resulted from misleading information supplied to those countries by Canadian police and security officers.

Iacobucci was appointed last December to get to the bottom of the affair. But the terms of reference announced by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day define the probe as an "internal inquiry" and provide that most of the evidence be examined in private.

The terms do allow Iacobucci to conduct some public hearings if he considers them "essential" to his work, and he signalled Monday that he will take advantage of the opportunity.



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