Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui, 28 April 2004

April 28th, 2004 - Montreal: The Coalition for Justice for Adil Charkaoui has learned that Moroccan prisoner Noureddine Nafiaâ has denied all links to terrorist acts in Morocco and elsewhere.

A "confession" by Nafiaa was cited as the source of allegations against Adil Charkaoui published on 16 April in the Moroccan newspaper Aujourd’hui le Maroc and echoed by media in Quebec and Canada. However, Nafiaa’s parent was quoted on 21 April by another Morroccan daily, At-Tajdid, as saying that Nafiaa denied links to terrorism and that he considered the accusations under which he had been convicted to be an abuse. A February 2004 report on Morocco’s "anti-terrorism" programme by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) describes interrogation under torture to elicit pre-scripted confessions. According to Human Rights Watch, detainees in Morocco are not being permitted to challenge the admissability of confessions they claim have been coerced under abuse.

The timing of the new media allegations was very sensitive for Adil Charkaoui. Charkaoui is currently waiting for a final decision on his application to Canada for protection, which he hopes will forestall the possibility of deportation to Morocco under a Security Certificate. A pre-removal risk assessment by Immigration Canada found that Charkaoui faces a risk of torture, as well as threats to his life and of cruel and unusual punishment if he is deported to Morocco. However, there is a danger that the mediatisation of the alleged Nafiaa confession will have an impact on the decision about protection in the highly politicised Charkaoui case.

Under the Security Certificate process, the Minister is granted a discretionary power to send someone to torture. Torture is a crime against humanity. In a motion filed recently in court, Adil Charkaoui challenged the legislation, arguing that it violates the UN Convention against Torture. He also submitted that the delay in deciding on protection constitutes an abuse of process by the Minister and that, because of the Minister’s bad conduct, his application for protection should be granted without further delay or assessment. Charkaoui has lived under the threat of deportation to torture since his arrest in May 2003. The positive pre-removal risk assessment by Immigration Canada was, extraordinarily, hidden from him for over seven months, causing unnecessary stress to him and his family.

Canada was reminded by the UN Committee against Torture in 2000 that it is prohibited to deport someone when a substantial risk of torture exists. The sole consideration in the decision on whether to grant protection should be the risk to Mr. Charkaoui. It is clear, based on assessments by Immigration Canada, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as the FIDH report, that Mr. Charkaoui must be granted protection.

In Morocco, Aujourd’hui le Maroc is nicknamed "Aujourd’hui le Makhzen" for its reputation of having close ties to the Moroccan state ("Makhzen"). Three of its journalists were sued for defamation by a Spanish journalist, Ignacio Cembrero, after the paper published a series of articles accusing him of being a spy. On Friday, the organisation Reporters without Borders expressed concern about the paper’s defamation of Cembrero, and questioned the role of the Moroccan state in the affair. Journalists in Canada and Quebec bear the responsibility for spreading the sensational allegations against Charkaoui, which he categorically denies, without properly checking the source.

One of the "secret trial five", five Muslim men who are imprisoned without charges under secret evidence in Canada, Mr. Charkaoui has been in prison in Montreal since May 2003. If the security certificate is judged "reasonable", Charkaoui and the other men face deportation to their countries of origin where they risk further abuse of their rights and even death. A security certificate is a measure of the Immigrant and Refugee Protection Act. It has been described as "fundamentally flawed and unfair" by Amnesty International and is being used in a larger pattern of attacks on Muslim and Arab communities and on civil liberties.

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