October 21, 2008

Speed-readers’ guide to the Iacobucci Inquiry

The Harper government has given everyone less than a day’s notice that the Iacobucci Inquiry’s report will be released today, and seems intent on ensuring poor quality coverage by canceling the lock-up. The inquiry’s report will be released at 1:00 p.m. today, and followed by a news conference at 2:00 p.m. in the National Press Theatre in Ottawa. So it’s all about speed-reading. One hour for an estimated 350 pages. To help out, I’ve prepared three documents. Here is the shortest — ten things to look for in the report. The others are available here.

  1. The Arar Inquiry found that the RCMP had no basis to label Maher Arar a terrorist in leaks to the media and in communications with the Americans. El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin, were labeled in the same way, and just like Arar, no evidence has ever been publicly produced to back the allegations. The Iacobucci Inquiry is the men’s best hope to clear their names.
  2. The inquiry must determine whether, like in Arar’s case, Canadian agencies’ actions, such as sharing allegations of terrorist ties, influenced the decision by Syrian officials — and, in the case of El Maati, Egyptian officials — to detain them.
  3. El Maati was followed to the airport in Toronto, questioned there before boarding his flight, and then followed on his flights to Syria on November 11 and 12, 2001. Were the men who followed El Maati from Canadian agencies?
  4. All of these men were interrogated, under torture, with questions based on information that could only have come from Canada. The Arar Inquiry determined that the RCMP sent questions used to interrogate Almalki. How much of the information used in the interrogations of the other men was supplied by Canadian agencies?
  5. The Arar Inquiry found that El Maati’s “confessions” under torture in Syria were used to justify warrants in Canada. Why and how did Canadian agencies make use of  these tainted “confessions”?
  6. The Inquiry must determine why Almalki spent more than twenty-two months in Syrian detention without receiving a consular visit from Canadian officials, and, when he was released, was denied refuge in the Canadian embassy? It must also determine why El Maati did not receive any consular visits from Canadian officials until nine months into his incommunicado detention.
  7. The Arar Inquiry found that Canadian agencies continued their investigations of Almalki and El Maati while they were in detention by pursuing the possibility of interviewing them there. Did these officials consider the impact of their actions on how these men were being treated, or on efforts to secure their release?
  8. As in the case of Mr. Arar, unnamed Canadian officials used the media to accuse Mr. El Maati and Mr. Almalki of links to al-Qaeda. Which Canadian officials and agencies made these anonymous allegations in the media and why? Was this, as in the case of Mr. Arar, an intentional campaign by Canadian officials to harm the reputations of Mr. El Maati and Mr. Almalki? What impact did this have on their treatment in detention, and on efforts to secure their release?
  9. In Mr. Nureddin’s case, anonymous “intelligence officials” told the National Post that Mr. Nureddin was suspected of having served as a “courier of money and information for an organization.” Who made this allegation and why? ?
  10. Did Canadian agencies and officials impede efforts by the men’s families, human rights groups, and other Canadian officials to have these men released from custody? If so, why?

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One Response to “Speed-readers’ guide to the Iacobucci Inquiry”

  1. Arif Jinha Says:
    October 21st, 2008 at 9:23 pm

    Hi Kerry,

    I watched the Stockwell Day interview and was encouraged to hear you speak up and more truthfully about the situation. In my view, Stockwell Day cannot possibly be committed to oversight. He has placed himself above the law repeatedly on a number of occasions; in regards to the complicity in the torture of Omar Khadr of CSIS interrogators reporting to him and his dismissal of the court judgments with regard to that; and more recently the repeated use of the national security clause in the ITOA to block the transfer of Canadian citizens even when both countries prison systems agree and recommend transfer. Clearly Stockwell Day, is either suffering from paranoid delusions in regards to what constitutes a national security threat, or more likely in the absence of oversight he is abusing his discretion. Recent judgment by the Federal Court Judge Michael Kalen in the Getkate case found the refusal decisions ‘wholly unreasonable’, yet Stockwell Day gone on to use the same rationale to refuse after the decision.

    He is now being sued for contempt of court. This issue has affected me deeply having a friend who suffered a miscarriage of justice in Florida in a case where Canadian courts would have no doubt found him not criminally responsible. He has bipolar, committed an act of incompetence and incapacity where no one was physically injured but where he nonetheless received a twenty year sentence for ’second-degree attempted murder’. He is now very ill, having contracted hep C in jail in Florida, having suffered injudicious solitary confinements, and no proper treatment for his bipolar. He was only 19 at the time and has been in jail for nearly four years already. His story appeared on the Verdict last year (Sacha Bond).

    I am now working also with Michael Kapoustin, who has returned from 13 yrs of prison in Bulgaria, and is determined to reform the system starting with DFAIT. We feel that we have to bring the stakeholders together behind a common purpose of reform, those citizens and their families who are affected by imprisonment/detention abroad and suffered injustice as a result of our governments actions, whether it is Public Safety and transfers, RCMP, DFAIT or CSIS.

    Feel free to get in touch with either of us, michael can be reached through http://www.michaelkapoustin.com

    thanks again for your good work,

    Arif Jinha

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