Almalki accuses Ottawa of aiding Syrian officials

[schart28]

CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/12/day-inquiry.html

The federal government has called an inquiry into the cases of three other Canadians detained in Syria, the public safety minister said Tuesday after a separate inquiry released the second report on the Maher Arar affair.

Stockwell Day appointed former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci to lead the inquiry involving Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad El Maati.

 

[schart28]

CBS News: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/12/13/almalki-inquiry.html

Abdullah Almalki accused Canadian officials Tuesday of having a larger hand in his imprisonment and alleged torture in Syria than they did in the Maher Arar affair.

"The complicity is far greater to the Canadian government than in Mr. Arar's case," the 35-year-old Syrian-Canadian engineer told CBC News Tuesday from Ottawa.

 

[North Star]

Attribution heuristic. He needs to beleive something like that because "s%$t happened" is almost never a good enough explanation.

 

[Wookilar]

I have a couple of questions about all of this (keep in mind, I'm no legal beagle, I'm really asking here. I've asked some of the politics types here at RMC and have received few solid, and a couple contradictory, answers). I know there are a few people here that are far more learned than I when it comes to international politics and legal matters.

Do any of these gentlemen hold dual Canadian and Syrian citizenship papers? Did a search and while there is a lot of hypens being thrown around by the media, I could not find an article which declared one way or the other.

If so, have any of them renounced (or can you) their Syrian passports? If these people are Syrian citizens, which laws trump which? I know we have some kind of statute that says we do not extradite to countries where there is a reasonable possibility that people will be tortured, but that mainly seems to apply in criminal cases where the defendants are not Canadian citizens but are usually applying for immigrant status (from what I've found in my searches, at any rate). It appears that these gentlemen already are Canadian citizens, but their old governments would still have a legal hold on them and they legal obligations to that country. If they wanted them for "questioning" can we legally say "Not gonna happen" ?

What happens when these people are wanted by their own country but this other country says "No" ? What then happens to Canadians already living in Syria (permanently) that are wanted by Canadian authorities? It seems a very convoluted mess to me and once internal politics gets into it, it gets even worse.

I'm not arguing that there was probably some very nasty things going on in Syrian prisons. I do feel sorry for these individuals and I'm sure they had a hell of a time.

I'm just wondering where international law sits on situations like this. Which country has precedence? The old one or the new one?

 

[hotelquebec9er]

Many countries do not acknowledge dual citizenship (China, for example).  I do not know if Syria fits into this category. 

My experience with International law is that, regardless of what international law states, a country has in the way of laws, that possession or control of the situation is key.  As in, the country who is holding the person/holds the land/etc. has the ball and can break international law as it pleases (usually without repercussion). 

That's my read as a final year political science student at the University of Windsor.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I knew this scam would catch on.......

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/591431
Canadians tortured overseas sue government
Feb 22, 2009 04:29 PM
Jim Bronskill
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Three Canadians who were jailed and tortured in Syria are filing new lawsuits against the federal government, armed with fresh information from an inquiry that implicated several agencies in their ordeals.

The renewed legal actions come four months after a commission of inquiry said Canadian officials contributed to the brutalization of Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin and Abdullah Almalki by sharing information – including unfounded and inflammatory accounts of extremist links – with foreign intelligence and police agencies.

Former Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci cited the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Foreign Affairs for mistakes.
Iacobucci concluded the three men were tortured in Syrian custody and, in the case of El Maati, in Egypt as well. None of the men – all of whom are now in Canada and deny involvement in terrorism – has ever been charged.

Initial lawsuits by the three were put on hold during the inquiry, which lasted almost two years. Now the men are renewing legal efforts to wrest compensation from the government.
El Maati and Nureddin are seeking permission to amend their original suits, and have filed proposed new claims with the Ontario Superior Court. Almalki plans to update his claim in coming days.

In interviews, El Maati and Nureddin stressed that while they're suing for monetary damages, a federal apology is crucial.
"The apology's very important for me, because without (an) apology the suspicion is still hanging over my head," said Nureddin, who fled Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime 15 years ago.
"We're living in Canada, a democratic society. We should see accountability."

Both El Maati and Nureddin say they have been shattered by their experiences, left physically and psychologically bruised, and unable to work due to the trauma. Even worse, they feel cut off from the world, having been ostracized by numerous friends and community members who fear any association will bring suspicion upon themselves.

El Maati, a former truck driver, was arrested in November 2001 upon flying to Syria to celebrate his wedding – nuptials that never took place.
"All my dreams were shattered," said El Maati, who lives with his mother in Toronto.

False confessions extracted under torture from El Maati were used to justify a telephone wiretap in Canada. After several weeks in Syria, he was flown to Egypt and further abused during two years of detention there.
His battered body has undergone several operations.
"I used to be someone who's very fit," he said. "And I used to like walking and hiking and stuff like that. Now I can't go for one block till I need to sit down and rest."

Nureddin, a Toronto geologist, was detained by Syrian officials in December 2003 as he crossed the border from Iraq, where he was visiting family. He was held for 34 days in Syria in late 2003 and early 2004.
Nureddin is now afraid to travel and wonders if he will ever again see his ill mother in Iraq.
Almalki, an Ottawa electronics engineer, was detained in Syria in 2002 and held for 22 months.

In their revised claims, El Maati and Nureddin allege that the government, knowing they could not be legally held or successfully prosecuted in Canada, facilitated their "arbitrary detention, torture, false imprisonment and assault and battery" overseas.
The claims against the government and various officials have not been tested in court.

After release of Iacobucci's report last fall, then-public safety minister Stockwell Day declined to comment on the prospect of compensation or apologies, noting civil suits were before the courts.
El Maati and several family members are suing the federal government for $100 million, while Nureddin and his family claim damages of $90 million.

The Commons public safety and national security committee plans hearings next month into the government response to the commission of inquiry into the cases of El Maati, Nureddin and Almalki.
MPs will also examine how the government handled recommendations of a 2006 inquiry report on the case of Maher Arar, another Arab-Canadian jailed and tortured in Syria.

The government apologized to Arar two years ago and paid him $10.5 million in compensation after he initially sued for $400 million, a figure later revised to $37 million.

 

[GAP]

Torture victims lose Supreme Court documents bid
Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin accused Ottawa of hiding behind national security law
CBC News Posted: Jan 19, 2012
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/01/19/supreme-court-torture-cases.html

Three Arab-Canadian men who are suing the federal government for being complicit in their detention and torture in Syria and Egypt have lost a bid at the Supreme Court to gain greater access to some of the government's alleged evidence against them.

Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin were challenging Ottawa's right to withhold information about their cases on grounds of national security.

A government inquiry had concluded in 2008 that Canadian officials were likely to be at least partially to blame for the torture of the three men.

The three were seeking leave to appeal a ruling last year by the Federal Court of Appeal that sided with the government over keeping information about their cases from being released.

El Maati, a former truck driver from Toronto, was arrested in November 2001 after he flew to Syria to celebrate his wedding.

Almalki, an electronics engineer in Ottawa, was detained in Syria in 2002 and held for 22 months.

Nureddin, a Toronto geologist, was detained by Syrian officials in December 2003 as he crossed the border from Iraq, where he was visiting family. He was held for 34 days in Syria in late 2003 and early 2004.

The men are suing federal agencies for compensation, but the government has denied any responsibility despite the conclusions of the inquiry in 2008.

Almalki said he was disappointed with Thursday's decision but plans to continue pursuing his case against the government.

"I'll keep on working for more disclosure and to have government officials held accountable," he said.

End of Article

 

[Eye In The Sky]

so....let me get this straight.  3 guys leave Canada, go to another country, where they are tortured and the Cdn government is responsible for what reason??

WTF do people expect when they leave Canada and go to places where things like being arrested, detained and possibly tortured happen??

I think they are suing the WRONG government here...

:

 

[jollyjacktar]

Just tryin to make a buck I'd expect.  Kudos to the SCC for putting the kibosh on this gravy train attempt.

 

[aesop081]

  3 guys leave Canada, go to another country, where they are tortured and the Cdn government is responsible for what reason??

I think they are alleging that it went something like this :

1- Bloggins goes from Canada to Syria
2- Canada says to Syria "Hey you should have a chat with Bloggins"
3- Syria has a "chat" with Bloggins

 

[Eye In The Sky]

:

Well, after reading some of the comments the "glue-sniffing gang" are making on the CBC story, I've forgotten how stupid I thought this story was, because the G-S Gang with keyboards are bringing stupid to a whole new level.

Why why why do I let myself read the comments on CBC stories  :facepalm:

 

[jollyjacktar]

:

Well, after reading some of the comments the "glue-sniffing gang" are making on the CBC story, I've forgotten how stupid I thought this story was, because the G-S Gang with keyboards are bringing stupid to a whole new level.

Why why why do I let myself read the comments on CBC stories  :facepalm:

Because you are like most of us, you enjoy the offense it gives you to read the glue sniffers and to hit the thumbs down button.

 

[larry Strong]

Because you are like most of us, you enjoy the offense it gives you to read the glue sniffers and to hit the thumbs down button.

:goodpost:

 

[The Bread Guy]

Quite the bump, indeed, with the latest from the courts - in this case, the Federal Court of Canada (summary here, decision here).

Bottom line:  Federal Court tells Canada, "yeah, you have to share information from the int guys as part of disclosure as these guys sue for compensation for mistreatment - but 'the Court will proceed to consider whether the release of any information from which the identities of CSIS employees or human sources may be inferred would cause injury to one of the protected national interests and, if so, whether the risk of that harm outweighs the public interest in disclosure' "

What caused this?  "A Canadian torture victim who is suing the federal government for his detainment and torture overseas is heading to court Friday to fight redactions by RCMP and CSIS to documents related to his case ...."

Before this?  "Canadian officials did not directly contribute to the detentions abroad of three Muslim-Canadian men, but the actions of Canadian officials did indirectly contribute to their mistreatment and torture at the hands of Mideast jailers, an inquiry has found ...."