Canada

Use of torture-derived information by CSIS slammed as ‘not decent’

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Published December 7, 2012, in Canada, Torture

 BY COLIN PERKEL The government’s labelling of an Egyptian man as a terrorist threat to Canada’s national security is based on flimsy evidence tainted by torture, Federal Court heard Friday. 

In closing submissions, lawyer Johanne Doyon accused Canada’s spy service of unethical tunnel vision in its 12-year quest to have Mohamed Mahjoub deported. 

“We know now that there is a large part of the file that was based on (torture),” Ms. Doyon told Judge Edmond Blanchard.

 The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, she said, did not have “sufficient morality” to exclude evidence against Mr. Mahjoub they knew was obtained from torture.

 Mahjoub, a father of three, has been in prison or under house arrest in Toronto since he was first slapped with a national security certificate in 2000. 

His lawyers are trying to have the case against him thrown out as an abuse of process.

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Torture Survivors Ask the UN: What’s the Point of Having Laws Against Torture if They Don’t Apply to the Powerful?

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Published November 18, 2012, in "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", Abuse of power, Black Sites, Canada, Guantanamo, Torture

One thing brings these four men together. Hassan bin Attash, Sami el-Hajj, Muhammed Khan Tumani and Murat Kurnaz—they are all survivors of the systematic torture program the Bush administration authorized and carried out in locations including Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo, and numerous prisons and CIA “black sites” around the world. Between them, they have been beaten, hung from walls or ceilings, deprived of sleep, food and water, and subjected to freezing temperatures and other forms of torture and abuse while held in U.S. custody. None was charged with a crime, two were detained while still minors, and one of them remains at Guantánamo.

This week, in a complaint filed with the United Nations Committee against Torture, they are asking one question: how can the man responsible for ordering these heinous crimes, openly enter a country that has pledged to prosecute all torturers regardless of their position and not face any legal action?

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) filed the complaint on the men’s behalf.

The country in question is Canada, visited last year by former U.S. President George W. Bush during a paid speaking engagement in Surrey, British Columbia. Bush’s visit drew hundreds in protest, calling for his arrest, and it also provided bin Attash, el-Hajj, Tumani and Kurnaz the opportunity to call on the Canadian government to uphold its legal obligation under the U.N. Convention against Torture, and conduct a criminal investigation against Bush while he was on Canadian soil.

To this end, the four men, submitted a 69-page draft indictment that CCR and CCIJ had presented to Canada’s attorney general ahead of Bush’s arrival in support of their private prosecution. The submission included thousands of pages of evidence against Bush consisting of extensive reports and investigations conducted by multiple U.S. agencies and the U.N. The evidence is overwhelming, not to mention the fact that Bush has admitted, even, boasted of his crimes, saying “damn right” when asked if it was permissible to waterboard a detainee – a recognized act of torture.

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Opinion: 9/11 the most politicised crime ever

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Published September 14, 2011, in Canada, Islamophobia

By Mohamed ElMasry
CAIRO – Ten years is a relatively brief time in the history of a country. But more changes have taken place in Canada since September 11, 2001 than in any other time since the end of the Second World War.

  

Our country was not even the primary target of the crime of 9/11, yet Canadians in general and Canadian Muslims in particular are still living under the persistent shadow of 9/11.
      In fact, 9/11 has become the most politicised crime in modern history.
     Even the crime itself was given the date it has happened to keep it alive in people’s memory for ever. It was not given the location where it has happened as in the case of the recent terrorist attacks in Oslo, or the ones in London, etc.
   That crime has been used to justify a long list of policies and politics that are robbing both this generation and the next of certain rights and freedoms that the Western liberal movement achieved only after a long struggle with oppressive traditions.
   The crime of 9/11 was used, and is still being used, to justify the erosion of Canadian civil liberties. This has happened, both openly and insidiously, through our government’s participation in the vaguely defined American-inspired global “war on terror” (which includes the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan); through the increasing militarisation of Canadian foreign policy; through increases in Canada’s defence spending at the expense of social justice programmes; and through the increasing Americanisation of Canadian economic and governmental policies.
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Canada’s imprisoned bomb-plotters say their isolation does not fit the crime

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Published September 1, 2011, in Canada

COLIN FREEZE

Five men convicted of distinct al-Qaeda-inspired bomb plots have ended up isolated in a single wing within Canada’s most punishing prison – a fate they say they don’t deserve.

The complaints from the inmates arise as federal authorities struggle with how to jail radical Islamists – whether to isolate them, what programs to craft for them and how to achieve the correctional system’s stated goal of rehabilitation.

Government officials say they have good reason for keeping such inmates away from the general prison population, fearing they may radicalize others. But the policy does produce an ironic result: The convicted terror plotters associate mostly with one another.

The issue is not large in terms of numbers. The five prisoners represent the bulk of the terrorism convicts sent to penitentiaries since Canada passed the Anti-Terrorism Act in 2001.

Although convicted by different judges in far-flung courtrooms, each inmate has ended up in the Special Handling Unit (SHU), a facility outside of Montreal that’s described as Canada’s version of a U.S. supermax prison. Their sentences range from 18 years to life.

 

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Secret documents flag Tory spin on conditions in Afghan jails

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Published June 23, 2011, in Afghanistan, Canada, Detainee Abuse

Allan Woods and Bruce Campion-Smith Ottawa Bureau

OTTAWA—Federal officials worried that the Conservatives’ rosy public pronouncements on Afghan detainees were starkly at odds with the grim reality in Kandahar jails that failed to meet basic international standards, documents reveal.

One memo to then foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon in November 2007 warned of the imminent release of detainee documents related to a federal-court case brought by Amnesty International.

“Cumulatively, the documents leave one with the impression of (a) flawed Afghan judicial system that fall (sic) well below UN standards,” reads the memo, written by an adviser with the Afghanistan Task Force. “In addition, the assembled material may seem to suggest that Government of Canada messaging on the detainee issues for the last 12 months has been out of sync with reporting from the field.”

The revelation was contained in a massive, 4,000-page release of government documents Wednesday related to the handling and transfer of battlefield prisoners into the hands of Afghan authorities.

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Canada says documents clear its troops of allegation they knew of torture of Afghan detainees

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Published June 22, 2011, in Canada, Detainee Abuse

TORONTO — Canada released declassified documents Wednesday that it said cleared military officials of charges that they ignored evidence that Taliban prisoners handed over to Afghanistan’s intelligence service were being tortured.

The main opposition party, however, questioned the findings, saying it had no faith in an ad-hoc committee of Parliament members who reviewed the documents and refused to take part in the process.

The release of some 4,000 previously classified documents comes about two years after a senior Canadian diplomat first alleged that government and military officials knew about the purported torture.

The issue sparked a debate in Parliament and prompted the creation of a special multiparty committee to examine documents related to the treatment of Afghan detainees.

“The allegations of improper conduct are unfounded and critics’ accusations of Canadian complicity with torture or even war crimes are simply not true,” Foreign Minister John Baird said.

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Debate over Afghan detainee abuse set to re-ignite as documents released

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Published June 21, 2011, in Afghan Detainees, Afghanistan, Canada

By Mark Kennedy

Afghan detainees sit in an Afghan National Army compound
at a Canadian forward operating base in Panjwaiyi District,
Afghanistan on November 13, 2008.
Photograph by: Ethan Baron/Canwest News Service, xx

OTTAWA — The heated political debate over whether Canada was complicit in the abuse of Afghan detainees will suddenly re-emerge Wednesday, as the federal government releases thousands of pages of documents related to the issue.

The long-awaited release of the records comes a year after the Conservatives, Liberals and Bloc Quebecois formed an ad hoc committee of MPs to review 40,000 pages of uncensored documents.

The records focus on how the Canadian Forces transferred detainees to Afghan authorities during this country’s military mission, and whether there is any truth to allegations that Canadian soldiers and officials knew — but failed to act — on abuse and torture of those detainees by Afghans.

Last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government released some censored documents in response to opposition pressure. Then-speaker Peter Milliken ruled the government had breached the privileges of MPs by failing to release all the unredacted documents.

That led to the creation of the ad hoc committee — the NDP boycotted the process, saying it was flawed — and for months the once-burning political issue has been on the back burner.

As part of the arrangement, the government established a process last July to help ensure the MPs on the committee don’t go too far in deciding which documents are made public.

A panel of three judges acted as arbiters to oversee their work and determine whether some documents should remain secret because their public release would jeopardize Canada’s national defence, international relations and national security.

It’s expected that the Tories will argue there are no damning revelations in the documents and that if the judges have concluded to still censor some sections, the move stemmed from a legitimate desire to protect troops and maintain security.

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Mounties conduct second raid on alleged Ottawa terror cell

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Published September 5, 2010, in Canada, New Arrest

Stewart Bell

A second search was underway in Ottawa on Wednesday afternoon, in connection with the arrests earlier in the day of two men — with suspected links to al-Qaida.

The men were arrested on terrorism charges.

This time, police were searching an address in the west end of the city.

Earlier Wednesday, the RCMP made two arrests in the nation’s capital without incident. The men are suspected of preparing a terrorist attack targeting Canada. The ringleader allegedly attended training camps in the Pakistan and Afghanistan region.

But the bomb plot was described as not well-defined and the arrests were apparently made because one of the suspects was preparing to travel abroad.

A news conference has been scheduled for Thursday afternoon. The RCMP, Ottawa Police Service and Canadian Security Intelligence Service were involved in the operation.

“At approximately 8:00 this morning, A Division’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (A-INSET) investigators arrested two Ottawa residents in relation to terrorist offences,” the RCMP said in a news release Wednesday afternoon.

 

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Canadians would accept life-saving intel obtained by torture: CSIS official

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Published May 5, 2010, in Canada, Torture

Juliet O’Neill, Canwest News Service

Ethan Baron/Canwest News Service Afghan detainees sit in
an Afghan National Army compound at a Canadian forward
operating base on Nov. 13, 2008.

OTTAWA – The average Canadian would not object to the use of intelligence potentially obtained by torture if it means saving Canadian lives, a senior official at the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service suggested Wednesday.

Speaking to a parliamentary committee, Michel Coulombe said CSIS has received intelligence gathered by the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence service, that has been flagged as possibly obtained by torture.

He said “it is possible” some NDS intelligence came from detainees interrogated by the NDS after they were captured by Canadians and transferred to Afghan custody.

The guiding principle is that CSIS must not rely on information suspected of being obtained by torture and the procedure is that such information is flagged with a caveat, he said. The agency then tries to find additional or corroborating information.

When asked by Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh about the difficulty when information obtained by torture cannot be corroborated elsewhere, Mr. Coulombe said he believes the average Canadian would not accept it if Canadians die “because we did nothing.”

Intelligence gathered in Afghanistan, he said, has been used to disrupt bomb attacks by Afghan insurgents against Canadians and to support Canada’s strategic goals in fighting al-Qaida terrorism.

Mr. Coulombe is assistant director of foreign intelligence collection at CSIS, Canada’s spy agency. He gave a rare glimpse Wednesday into CSIS operations in Afghanistan at the House of Commons special committee on the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, saying the agency wants Canadians to be as informed as possible about Canada’s No. 1 foreign policy.

The committee is examining assertions that Canadian soldiers transferred captives to Afghan custody knowing they could or would be tortured.

 

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Toronto 18 ‘bomb plot chief’ jailed

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Published January 18, 2010, in Canada, Zakaria Amara

The so-called Toronto 18 plot was aimed at prompting
Canadian troops to leave Afghanistan [EPA]

The suspected ring-leader of the failed “Toronto 18″ bomb plot, aimed at provoking a Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan, has been sentence to life in prison.

Zakaria Amara, a Jordanian-born Canadian citizen, was sentenced on Monday “for his role in a terrorist plot to bomb Toronto”, the public prosecution service of
Canada said in a statement.

He was also sentenced to nine years “for his participation in a terrorist group,” to be served concurrently.

The sentence is the stiffest punishment imposed in the conspiracy and under Canada’s anti-terrorism laws, which parliament passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

But Amara may be eligible for parole in less than seven years after having already served time in prison awaiting trial.

‘Spine-chilling’

Amara had pleaded guilty to involvement in the Toronto 18 plot to set off bombs outside Toronto’s stock exchange, the country’s spy agency and a military base.
Judge Bruce Durno, who read out the sentence, said that if the plot been successful it would have been the most horrific crime in Canada’s history.

“What this case revealed was spine-chilling,” Durno said.

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