Kerry Pither

The Iacobucci Inquiry has revealed yet another way in which the actions of CSIS agents likely contributed to the torture of Canadian citizen Ahmad El Maati.

Inquiry Commissioner Justice Frank Iacobucci Inquiry had hoped to include today’s revelation in its public report released in October 2008, but was forced to fight government claims of national security confidentiality.

The newly released information says that in June 2002, CSIS agents sent a message to Egyptian authorities trying to confirm that El Maati was in detention there, and telling them, among other things not disclosed, that he was involved in a plan to commit a terrorist act in Canada.

Justice Iacobucci has already confirmed that that this allegation was not based on evidence, but on an alleged “confession” obtained earlier from Syrian authorities – a “confession” that Iacobucci says CSIS should have known was likely the product of torture.

Justice Iacobucci criticizes CSIS for failing to take into account the potential consequences of sharing this allegation with the Egyptian authorities for El Maati.

He says once they confirmed El Maati was indeed in Egyptian detention, CSIS continued to communicate with the Egyptians, and sought permission from then CSIS deputy director of operations, Jack Hooper, to travel to Egypt later that year.

Hooper approved the trip, and apparently told the Inquiry that while he did consider the possibility El Maati might be mistreated as a result of the trip, he didn’t think that was likely, and, besides, it was more important to find determine if there really was a threat to Canada.

A list of questions was prepared, “to which it [CSIS] wished to obtain answers,” and the trip went ahead in December 2002.

Justice Iacobucci concludes that the information shared in June 2002, the list of questions, and the trip all likely contributed to El Maati’s mistreatment.

And Justice Iacobucci has already documented how El Maati was subsequently tortured in Egypt – with electric shock to his hands, back and genitals, and sleep deprivation while being subjected to excruciatingly painful stress torture for days on end.

Justice Iacobucci takes CSIS to task for failing to include enquiries about how El Maati was being treated.

But then again, as he confirmed in his report, CSIS had already been informed as early as July 2002 that El Maati had been tortured in Egyptian detention.

What Justice Iacobucci doesn’t tell us is what CSIS did with the questions.

Did the agents hand them over to El Maati’s interrogators? Did the agents witness or participate in any of El Maati’s interrogations? Did they get answers back?

Were there any subsequent trips to Egypt?

Today’s revelations have renewed calls by human rights advocates, and the men whose cases were examined by the Iacobucci Inquiry, for decisive action to ensure that Canada is never again complicit in torture.

“This revelation is particularly disturbing given the expanding powers being awarded to CSIS to act overseas, and the government’s continued refusal to beef up oversight and review not just of CSIS but all agencies involved in national security investigations,” said Warren Allmand, former solicitor general and a spokesperson for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group.

“It has been more than three years since Justice Dennis O’Connor wrapped up the Arar Inquiry and recommended a new comprehensive model of review and oversight and it is long past time to implement that important proposal,” he added. “It is too late for Mr. El Maati, but it’s not too late for others.”

“At a time when Canadian officials should have been doing everything they could to extricate Mr. El Maati from the terrifying human rights violations, today we learn of another way that they were instead contributing to his suffering,” said Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada.

“Combined with what we already knew about Canadian complicity in torture, it is outrageous that the government adamantly continues to refuse to apologize and offer redress to Mr. El Maati, along with Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin,” Neve added. “The government must stop their callous fight against these three men in the courts and do the right thing: say sorry and provide compensation.”

In December last year, the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security won majority support in a House of Commons vote for its recommendations that the government issue compensation and an apology to El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin, and implement the Arar Inquiry’s recommendation for a more robust system of checks and balances for agencies involved in national security investigations.

Since then, however, efforts at mediating a settlement for the men have collapsed because of a federal government position the men’s counsel say “eliminates any possibility of resolution.”

Today’s news adds to a long list of ways that Justice Iacobucci has already revealed that Canadian agencies contributed to Mr. El Maati’s detention and torture.

When his report was first released in October 2008, it revealed that Canadian officials had likely contributed to Mr. El Maati’s mistreatment and torture in Egypt in three other ways: CSIS sent a letter to Egyptian authorities labeling Mr. El Maati with unjustified allegations and expressing concern should he be released; the RCMP repeatedly requested the opportunity to interview Mr. El Maati in Egyptian custody; and the RCMP freely shared information with U.S. authorities that made its way into the hands of Egyptian interrogators.

The report also concluded that Canadian officials likely contributed to Mr. El Maati’s initial detention by Syrian authorities when they shared his travel itinerary with the FBI and CIA, and when, in communications with the Syrians, they labeled him as linked to terrorism without first ensuring the allegations were accurate or justified.

Justice Iacobucci has also already revealed that Canadian officials likely contributed to Mr. El Maati’s torture in Syria by supplying questions for his Syrian interrogators, and, when they received his “confession,” failing to advise consular affairs officials that they knew Mr. El Maati was in Syrian detention and had been interrogated.

The report also concluded that the actions of Canadian officials likely contributed to the detention and torture of Canadian citizen Muayyed Nureddin, and to the torture of Abdullah Almalki, both in Syria.

Click here for an overview of what we already knew from the Iacobucci Report.

Here’s the news release from today’s event in Ottawa. You can check out video of the installation on Canada AM’s web site here.

Ottawa — Three Canadian torture survivors were at a news conference in Ottawa today to unveil an art installation depicting some of the suffering they endured in a Syrian military intelligence detention centre.

Created by Ottawa artist Jenn Farr and builder Erik Windfeld, “El Abbar” (the grave) is a life-size replica of one of the underground, tiny, dark cells at the now infamous Far’ Falastin (Palestine Branch) Syrian detention centre. Ahmad El Maati was locked into one of these cells for two and a half months before being sent to Egypt. Abdullah Almalki survived one year, three months and twenty-five days in the tiny space. Beside him, Maher Arar was locked up for ten months and ten days. Muayyed Nureddin was locked into an over-crowded “common” cell down the hall.

El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin said they hope the installation will help Canadians, and the government, better understand the horrors of torture.

“I think it is very difficult for anyone to truly comprehend the conditions I was kept in – the loss of control over every aspect of my life, the filth, the smell, the constant sounds of people being tortured, the constant fear that I would be next and the feeling of being buried alive,” said Almalki. “I hope this will at least get people thinking, and better understanding, the horrors of torture.”

More than a year ago the Iacobucci Inquiry concluded that Canadian agencies likely contributed to the torture of El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin by, for example, sending information and questions used in their interrogations in Syria, and in the case of El Maati, Egypt too. The Inquiry also found that allegations about the men shared with foreign agencies were variously inaccurate, inflammatory and without investigatory foundation.

Last week on December 3, all opposition parties voted in the House of Commons to support a Commons Public Safety Committee report calling on the government to compensate and formally apologize to El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin. Since then, however, news has emerged that efforts at mediating a settlement for the men have collapsed because of a federal government position the men’s counsel say “eliminates any possibility of resolution.”

“Over the past few weeks at the hearings into Afghan detainees, we’ve witnessed what can only be read as the government’s callous disregard for the human consequences of torture, and outright contempt for those seeking answers or justice,” said Alex Neve, Secretary General for Amnesty International.

“Now we’re outraged to learn that the government is refusing to accept responsibility for the role played by Canadian agencies in what happened to these men, and forcing them into the courts to fight for the apology and compensation that would help them rebuild their shattered lives,” he added.

The art installation was commissioned by Kerry Pither, the author of Dark Days, a book chronicling the men’s experiences and the Canadian investigations that targeted them.

“I’ve learned through these stories that it is almost impossible for anyone who hasn’t survived torture to fully comprehend how barbaric it is,” said Pither. “I hope that by just spending a few seconds standing inside this replica of the cell, people will be better able to imagine the horrors of spending months in a place like this.”

Pither used the proceeds from the Ottawa Book Award to pay for supplies, and Farr and Windfeld donated their labour. The modular installation will be made available to galleries across Canada in the new year.

The men were also joined at the news conference by NDP MP Don Davies, Liberal MP Mark Holland, and Bloc MP Serge Menard, who sat together on the Public Safety Committee that recommended the government compensate and apologize to the men, in addition to implementing a new system of checks and balances for security agencies that would help ensure that what happened to these men never happens again.

Special to the Ottawa Citizen, June 26, 2009

It’s official. As long as the U.S. doesn’t interfere, Abousfian Abdelrazik will finally return home on Saturday, the fifth Canadian to come home with questions about Canadian complicity in his torture.

Has anything changed since the four with stories so similar to his – Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin – came home and demanded answers about Canada’s role in their torture?

For starters, we aren’t as easily convinced when fellow citizens are labeled as terror suspects. An overwhelming number of Canadians from all walks of life – apparently more skeptical of the security apparatus and the government than Abdelrazik – were willing to risk criminal charges by contributing to his airline ticket home.

That’s encouraging, and not surprising, given all we’ve learned from the Arar and Iacobucci Inquiries about the lack of evidence behind the allegations leveled against the others.

The media is more skeptical too. Even before Arar, El Maati and Almalki were released, the onus was on them to somehow disprove allegations being hurled at them in the media by nameless, faceless officials hoping to distract attention from their own shameful behaviour. Thanks to findings at the Arar Inquiry, and the benefit of hindsight, very few journalists are still willing to publish terrorism allegations from officials insisting on anonymity. That’s encouraging too.

We’ve also seen a shift in the courts, aptly demonstrated by the Federal Court ruling forcing Canada to bring Abdelrazik home.

But have the Canadian government and its agencies changed?

There, the news isn’t as good.

By waiting until a Federal Court forced it to bring Abdelrazik home, the government demonstrated it has learned precious little. And CSIS and the RCMP have yet to express any remorse for their now well-documented contribution the torture of El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin. So despite evidence that CSIS requested Abdelrazik’s detention, it’s unlikely he’ll be getting an apology any time soon.

So where can he turn for answers and accountability?

When Arar returned home almost six years ago, Shirley Heafey, then chair of the RCMP’s Public Complaints Commission, had publicly revealed that the force was refusing to cooperate with her investigations. Even if she had won new powers, her investigation would have been restricted to the RCMP, and Arar would have had to ask for separate investigations into the roles of CSIS, the CBSA, DFAIT and other agencies.

That’s why he called for a public inquiry – one that could subpoena witnesses and evidence from all the Canadian agencies implicated in his case.

Arar won that inquiry, and through it we all won many answers and important recommendations. Recognizing there was nowhere for El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin to turn for answers either, the Arar Inquiry made a recommendation leading to the creation of a second inquiry to examine their cases. And to address the long term, the Arar Inquiry called for the creation of a review mechanism with powers much like its own.

That recommendation, made more than two and a half years ago, has been fiercely resisted by CSIS and the RCMP, and dutifully ignored by the government.

Not that things have changed. Just weeks ago, the current chair of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission announced that he still lacks the power to investigate the force’s national security work. And SIRC has emphasized that its investigation into Abdelrazik’s case will be limited to CSIS involvement, not other agencies involved.

The government, apparently lacking the courage to stand up to CSIS and the RCMP, says that before it can implement that robust, independent and integrated review mechanism, we need to wait until the Air India Inquiry releases its report.

So Abdelrazik comes home to the same dilemma Arar faced six years ago. How will he, and we, get to the bottom of who did what in his case? Must he fight for an inquiry too? If he somehow manages to win one, will that be used as another excuse to stall implementation of a long term solution? And in the meantime, how are we to have any confidence in the agencies that are supposed to make us feel safer?

If the government won’t stand up to CSIS and the RCMP, we must. Canadians must insist on implementation of the long term, efficient and effective checks and balances so essential to delivering the accountability our democracy demands.

The head of CSIS, Jim Judd, says that veteran CSIS advisor Geoffrey O’Brian was wrong when he told the commons committee on public safety on Tuesday that CSIS will use information obtained under torture. Testifying today before the same committee, Judd said O’Brian would be recanting his statement in a letter.

I think O’Brian, who has been with CSIS since the eighties and helped draft the CSIS Act, was chosen to represent the agency and provide two hours of testimony on these issues on Tuesday precisely because he knows what he is talking about.

The Iacobucci Inquiry found that CSIS repeatedly used information that the agency knew, or ought to have known was likely the product of torture – that CSIS (and the RCMP) received a “confession” extracted under torture from Ahmad El Maati in November 2001, then crafted a new set of questions to send back to El Maati’s Syrian interrogators in an attempt to “corroborate” the confession. The confession itself was then used by the RCMP to justify search warrants and telephone taps here in Canada. Information obtained through the searches was used to write up new questions for overseas interrogators to ask not just El Maati, but Abdullah Almalki too.

Judd, the RCMP witness and Public Safety Minister Van Loan also repeatedly refused to use the opportunity of appearing before the committee today to apologize for their agencies’ complicity in the torture of El Maati, Almalki and Nureddin, citing outstanding litigation by the men. This is a sorry excuse – parliamentary privilege is extended to anyone appearing before committee – nothing said there can be used in any legal proceeding.

That Judd is refusing to show even the slightest sign of remorse about CSIS’ role in what happened to these men demonstrates that Judd, and his agency, don’t think there’s anything to be sorry about — that there’s anything wrong with contributing to torture, or using its product.

According to yesterday’s testimony before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security by CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian, CSIS continues to believe that information obtained under torture can be useful, and will use it in certain situations. “The simple truth is, if we get information which can prevent something like the Air India bombing, the Twin Towers – whatever, frankly – that is the time when we will use it despite the provenance of that information,” O’Brian told committee members. The Committee is hearing testimony on the findings and recommendations of the Arar Inquiry, and on the findings of the Iacobucci Inquiry, which determined that Canadian information sharing contributed to the detention and torture of Canadian citizens. Public Safety Minister Van Loan testifies tomorrow. While he is not appearing specifically to address this issue, it is likely he’ll be asked about it. I sure know what I’d ask him if I were on the Committee.

I’d like to know if the minister agrees that when intelligence agencies refuse to reject information obtained under torture they are encouraging more torture, and in essence maintaining a market for it.

I’d also know if the minister agrees that given that information obtained under torture has repeatedly and conclusively been demonstrated to be unreliable, that making use of it in any fashion in our intelligence work gives rise to a very real risk of creating a security risk.

Most importantly, I’d like to hear him commit to immediately issuing a Ministerial Directive prohibiting the use of information obtained under torture by any Canadian agency.

Ahmad El Maati’s case best illustrates CSIS’ use of tortured information. El Maati was detained and tortured in Syria after CSIS shared information with foreign agencies that inaccurately characterized him as being an “Islamic extremist” linked to “an aide of Osama Bin Laden.” The Iacobucci Inquiry has determined that this mislabeling likely contributed to El Maati’s detention and torture.

A couple of months later, on November 19, 2001, CSIS and the RCMP received El Maati’s so-called confession, extracted, we now know, through torture. CSIS and RCMP officials, incredibly, repeatedly told the Inquiry that at the time they had no evidence that Syria used torture, so didn’t consider that the confession might be the product of torture. Indeed, CSIS decided to try to corroborate the “confession” by sending more questions to be asked of El Maati by his torturers (see Iacobucci Report, page 364). Justice Iacobucci finds that these actions by both CSIS and the RCMP officials were deficient because they knew, or should have known about torture in Syria, and because their actions likely contributed to Mr. El Maati’s torture.

Meanwhile the RCMP used the so-called “confession” to justify search warrants conducted here in Canada in January 2002, without informing the presiding judge that the confession was likely the product of torture (see Iacobucci report, page 379). The information obtained through those searches, in turn, was sent to U.S. agencies, and that information was used to interrogate Mr. El Maati (using electric shock, among other methods) in Egypt. The information obtained in the searches also informed questions sent by the RCMP to Abdullah Almalki’s Syrian interrogators once he had been detained. Justice Iacobucci, of course, finds that sharing these questions was deficient, and contributed to both men’s torture.

The Arar Report’s eleventh recommendation calls on CSIS to “review their policies governing the circumstances in which they supply information to foreign governments with questionable human rights records.” It says that “information should never be supplied to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture. Policies should include specific directions aimed at eliminating any possible Canadian complicity in torture, avoiding the risk of other human rights abuses and ensuring accountability” (Arar Report, Analysis and Recommendations, page 345).

Justice O’Connor adds that “in every case, including those involving terrorism-related investigations, Canadian authorities should consider the justifications for and proportionality of any potential involvement with foreign governments that may result in human rights violations. There should be no blanket exception for terrorism-related investigations” (Arar Report, page 347).

Recommendation 15 says that “Canadian agencies should accept information from countries with questionable human rights records only after proper consideration of human rights implications.”

Justice O’Connor’s fifth recommendation calls for ministerial directives to be publicly issued to provide guidance for national security investigations, given the very grave implications of these investigations.

Indeed, another ministerial directive is long overdue. After the Arar Inquiry’s recommendations were released in September of 2006, Justice Iacobucci heard testimony from CSIS about another very disturbing ongoing practice. In May 2003, when the Egyptians were considering releasing Mr. El Maati, Justice Iacobucci finds that CSIS sent a memo to the Egyptians warning them not to release him. That memo, Justice Iacobucci finds, likely prolonged Mr. El Maati’s detention and put him at further risk of torture, especially because it contained a new, “inflammatory” allegation about Mr. El Maati –Justice Iacobucci says he could find no evidence to justify the new allegation.

When CSIS was asked about this new allegation at the inquiry, CSIS officials said they had labeled Mr. El Maati in this way just to see what the Egyptians would say in return – it was a sort of test to see if the Egyptians – the people torturing Mr. El Maati – agreed (Iacobucci report, page 181)!

Justice Iacobucci says in his report, on page 352, that “the evidence from CSIS witnesses was that there are no guidelines or policies about how people are described in communications with foreign agencies” and that one CSIS witness told the Inquiry that “the Service will characterize an individual, at least in part, to prompt a response from the receiving agency that will confirm or deny the assessment that the characterization reflects” (Iacobucci Report, page 352). Justice Iacobucci finds that “this is a very dangerous practice, one that puts the person labeled in this manner at risk, and increases the possibility that inaccurate information will be treated as credible” (page 352).

Dangerous indeed.

The CSIS official was describing an ongoing practice and lack of policy when providing evidence to the Iacobucci Inquiry, so this was occurring AFTER the release of the Arar Inquiry’s recommendations, and in direct defiance of Justice O’Connor’s 11th recommendation.

Justice Iacobucci says “It appears to me to be desirable that the Service have a clear policy concerning the manner in which people are described in communications with foreign agencies. This policy should not only extend to the use of appropriate qualifiers…but also the use of labels” (page 352).

I agree. Clearly we need a ministerial directive ensuring that CSIS develops a clear policy containing standards governing the use of labels in communications with foreign agencies.

Witnesses representing the RCMP, CSIS and the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) will testify on the Arar Inquiry recommendations and the Iacobucci Inquiry findings before the Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, March 31. CSIS and RCMP representatives should be asked, among other things, if they are prepared to apologize for the ways in which their agencies contributed to the detention and torture of Canadian citizens. The hearing takes place from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., in room 253 Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is open to the public. More details to be available soon on the Committee page here.

The Independent’s Robert Fisk was in Ottawa a few weeks ago and spoke with Canadian torture survivor Abdullah Almalki, one of the men whose stories I tell in my book. Fisk writes about Almalki’s case in his column, published today, and raises the all-important issue of accountability. “I want to know why those complicit in Almalki’s torture – the letter writers, the composers of questions – cannot be tried in court,” he writes. “They are, at the least, accomplices to human rights abuses.” Good point. Especially since they aren’t just not being held accountable — they’re being promoted. Just this week we learned that the RCMP’s Michel Cabana, the man who was in charge of the RCMP investigation that targeted Ahmad El Maati, Almalki, Maher Arar and Muayyed Nureddin, has been promoted to an Assistant Commissioner of the RCMP (Federal and International Operations, Border Integrity Section).

Cabana was in charge of the RCMP’s Project A-O Canada when El Maati, Almalki and Arar were detained in Syria and tortured into providing false confessions. He was also in charge when those so-called confessions made their way back to Canada. The first, of course, was pried out of Ahmad El Maati within the first few days of his incommunicado detention at the now infamous Syrian house of torture, the Palestine Branch, or Far Falastin, of the Syrian Military Intelligence. After being whipped with cables for days on end, being burned with cigarettes by men threatening his eyes were next, then being shoved into darkness in a dank, rat and insect-infested underground cell barely his size, El Maati agreed to confess to a plot proposed by his interrogators (armed with information from Canada) — that he had planned to blow up Ottawa’s parliament buildings.

That “confession” was used by Cabana’s team to justify search warrants against El Maati’s family, Abdullah Almalki, and other Canadians. When they applied for the search warrants, the RCMP didn’t tell the presiding judge that the confession was likely the product of torture, and therefore entirely unreliable. Nor did they let on that El Maati had ended up in the Syrian gulag because of information provided by the RCMP and CSIS. According to the report of the Iacobucci Inquiry, Cabana said that “while the group realized that the statement was likely not taken pursuant to Canadian standards, Project A-O Canada had no evidence at that time that torture had been used to obtain the statement” (Iacobucci Report, page 139).

His boss, then Superintendent Garry Clement (now Chief of Police in Cobourg, Ontario), said that investigators “had no information that Mr. El Maati had been tortured” when they applied for the search warrants, and that “it would have been wrong to cast aspersions against a country without fist having the facts straight” (page 139).

Justice Iacobucci would, of course, conclude that they knew, or should have known, that torture was likely taking place (page 363).

Cabana was also in charge when the fruits of the searches — detailed business records and a lot of other private, but apparently not incriminating, information obtained while ransacking the men’s families’ homes — were handed over to the Americans, and used by Canadians to write up a new round of questions for El Maati’s Syrian interrogators, and later, a round of questions for Abdullah Almalki.

Cabana also most assuredly knows who in the RCMP has been party to the smear campaign conducted against El Maati, Almalki and Arar in the media— an orchestrated attempt to convince the Canadian public and decision-makers that these men were terrorists. Putting the men on trial in the court of public opinion rather than in a court of law was their only option, of course, because as the Iacobucci Report points out, they simply didn’t have the evidence to back up the allegations and bring charges (to this day none of the men have been charged in Canada). The smear campaign was also, of course, about stopping us from focussing on their crime of complicity in torture — on how Canadian law makers and security officials were thwarting the rule of law by playing an active role in the torture of Canadian citizens.

Fisk is right. The Canadian officials who contributed to the torture of all four of these men must be held accountable in some way. As a first step, Canadians have a right to know where these people are now. Have they all been promoted? Are they still in charge of our public safety? Do any of them feel any remorse whatsoever?

CSIS and the RCMP are due to testify before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on March 31. I hope Canadians are paying close attention to that hearing, and that the agencies will be asked to account for the whereabouts of those officials whose complicity in the torture of Canadians has now been well documented by not one, but two judicial inquiries.

Committee meetings can be watched in person or on line here.

You can read Fisk’s full column here.

The Toronto Star’s Haroon Siddiqui has written a column today about how the headlines don’t match up with the reality of what’s in the Iacobucci Inquiry’s report. Siddiqui has nice things to say about my book, Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror too. “It is a compelling – and, as it turns out, accurate – account of the horrors they [the men] endured,” he says.

The Harper government is doing all it can to downplay the shocking findings in the Iacobucci Inquiry’s report, but don’t fall for the spin. Despite having been a one-sided, unfair and needlessly over-secretive process, it has produced a damning report, cataloging the many, many ways that our government agencies, CSIS and the RCMP were complicit in the detention and torture of Canadian citizens. Read my op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen today.

The Iacobucci Inquiry’s report is very good news for Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, and Muayyed Nureddin, and very bad news for the government, CSIS and the RCMP. It details how Canadian agencies’ allegations against the men were were ”inaccurate,” “inflammatory,” and “without investigative foundation,” and the many ways in which these agencies were complicit in their torture.

While former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci uses the term “indirect” to describe Canadian officials’ responsibility for detention and torture in his report, he explains that by indirect, he means that he cannot rule out the possibility that someone else was involved. So Canadian officials were “indirectly” responsible for the men’s torture in Syria (ie., by supplying questions) they weren’t actually wielding the whips and cables used to torture them. To say they were “directly” complicit, or responsible, he says, he would have had to rule out any possibility that anyone else was involved.

The government did its best to minimize the damage yesterday, waiting until late Monday night to tell journalists, and the men and their counsel, when the report would be released, and giving everyone one hour to read it before responding. Then Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day toured every media studio in town, trying to revive allegations against the men by pointing to claims made by the Attorney General in closing submissions to the Inquiry. He neglected to mention that Justice Iacobucci did not accept those arguments.

Read the report, not the submissions, Minister Day, then issue a formal apology to these men.

More to come soon.