Canada faulted in Syrian torture of Arab-Canadians

Canadian officials indirectly contributed to the torture of three Arab-Canadian men by sharing intelligence information with Syria and wrongly linking them to al-Qaida, a federal inquiry concluded Tuesday.

Former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci, who headed the inquiry, said the classified information was then used by Syrian authorities to interrogate the men about alleged terrorist links.

The inquiry also found that two of the men did not receive proper consular help from Canadian diplomats during their detention.

"Mistakes were made...detention and mistreatment were connected to those mistakes in my view in an indirect way," said Iacobucci during a news conference Tuesday summarizing key points of the 544-page report.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government appointed Iacobucci in December 2006 to lead the investigation into Canada's role in the detention of Canadian citizens Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin in Syria.

Western governments and human rights groups accuse Syria of freely using torture on its prisoners.

The men say they were wrongly labeled as terrorists by Canada's federal police force and intelligence agency. They were subsequently arrested on separate visits to Syria between 2001 to 2003, imprisoned and tortured, only to be released without charge.

The report found that Canadian officials contributed indirectly to the arrests of El Maati and Nureddin by sharing background information about them with foreign intelligence agencies before their trips abroad.

In the case of Almalki, Iacobucci said he couldn't come to a firm conclusion on that point.

The three men, who all deny any terrorist links, have long contended that the Canadian government tipped the Syrians on their travel plans, either directly or through an allied country such as the United States.

The three also say Canadian authorities disregarded the risk of torture and provided lists of questions or other background information for use by their Syrian captors during interrogation.

"They knew I would be tortured if they sent questions, but they sent them anyway," said Almalki. "Does it make a difference that a Syrian official used the whip against me when the information he got was from Canadian officials?"

Almalki and the two other men were categorized as terrorists with links to al-Qaida — a label that the report deemed was inaccurate.

Barbara Jackman, their lawyer, said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police did not take sufficient steps to make sure the accusations were reliable.

"In a post 9/11 world, when everyone was panicking, that's when its most important to make sure accusations are correct," she said.

Iacobucci concluded that the actions of officials showed "institutional deficiency." Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Tuesday that the heads of the RCMP, CSIS and Foreign Affairs have assured him "those deficiencies have been addressed."

But those assurances had a hollow ring to the three men at the heart of the probe. Most of Iacobucci's hearings were conducted in private, and the men had no access to documents or witnesses.

None of the men, now back in Canada, have been charged with a crime. They have sued the Canadian government, demanding apologies, compensation and the removal of their names from any watch lists so that they may resume travel.

"My life has been ruined. My reputation has been ruined for all these years. I lost my business based on information basically that didn't even relate to me," Almalki said.

The men's cases are similar to that of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, who was sent to Syria in 2002 by U.S. authorities after being detained in New York while traveling home to Canada from Tunisia.

U.S. officials were given false information from the RCMP about Arar, claiming he had ties to Islamic extremists. Once Arar was in the Damascus prison, Canadian police retracted the intelligence report, saying they no longer had proof.

Arar claimed he was tortured for nearly a year while in Syria and forced into false confessions of links to al-Qaida. The Syrians did not charge him with any crimes.

After his release in 2003, Arar detailed his case to a Canadian commission and was exonerated of any terrorist ties in 2006. He has since received over $8 million in compensation from the government.

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