Gazette, Marian Scott, 5 December 2011

MONTREAL — Advocates for five men arrested under security certificates said they were stunned to learn that Canada’s spy agency believed cases against them could fall apart if it could not use information obtained by torture.

On Saturday, the Montreal Gazette revealed that in 2008, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warned the minister of public security that it could become impossible to use security certificates to arrest and deport suspected terrorists if it was prohibited from using information from foreign regimes known to use torture.

In a letter obtained by the Montreal Gazette, former CSIS director Jim Judd warned that a proposed bill then before Parliament “could render unsustainable the current security certificate proceedings.” A security certificate is a means by which the government may detain and deport non-citizens perceived as a threat to national security.

The letter calls into question CSIS’s assurances that it did not countenance the use of torture abroad.

On Sunday, an advocacy group representing men who have been detained under security certificates hailed the report as proof that CSIS and top government officials knew terror cases might not stand up without information obtained under duress.

Toronto/Montreal/Ottawa, 4 December 2011 -- Several men whose lives were turned upside down when they were labelled and arrested as “threats to national security” were stunned to learn yesterday that CSIS itself believed that the cases against them would fall apart if CSIS were prevented from using information obtained from the use of torture. The startling admission was made in a secret memo sent from former CSIS head Jim Judd to then Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day in January 2008. Post media made the contents of the memo public yesterday.

“It is unbelievable. CSIS has been lying to us for years! But I don't know which is worse - CSIS's position or the fact that top officials like Stockwell Day were made aware but went ahead and signed the new certificates against us anyway, effectively condoning the use of torture and condemning us to several more years of arbitrary detention,” said Adil Charkaoui. Charkaoui is a Montreal teacher and father of four who won twice at the Supreme Court and was finally freed in 2009. He is currently seeking an apology from the government through court proceedings.

Despite its own evaluation that the cases would not meet new Canadian legal standards, introduced in February 2008, the agency advised Minister Day to issue the certificates. Day complied.

Spy agency worried bill would undercut anti-terrorism work

Catherine Solyom, Montreal Gazette, 3 December 2011
www.montrealgazette.com/news/Torture+strategy+accepted+letter+shows/5805...

Canada's spy agency was so reliant on information obtained through torture that it suggested the whole security certificate regime, used to control suspected terrorists in the country, would fall apart if they couldn't use it.

That's the essence of a letter written in 2008 by the former director of CSIS, Jim Judd, obtained by The Gazette.

It suggests a disturbing acceptance by the national security agency of torture as a legitimate strategy to counter terrorism.

The letter, dated Jan. 15, 2008, was sent from Judd to the minister of public security just as the government was finalizing Bill C-3, legislation to replace the security certificate law which was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in February 2007.

The government had been given a year to come up with new legislation that would respect the charter rights of those targeted by the certificates.

April 2, 2009

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has filed a complaint against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service for using information it knows is derived from torture. The complaint was filed with the Security Intelligence Review Committee early this morning. “Canada’s laws and international commitments say that we will never condone torture, no matter the public emergency,” says Gratl. “Canada must be unambiguous about opposing torture in all circumstances, or else we risk the greater use of torture by countries who believe Canada is not opposed to this repugnant practice.”

A documentary by Patricio Henriquez

Tuesday 17 March 09 at 7pm (French)
UQAM, room DS-1950 (Berri metro)
Cinema Politica UQAM

Wednesday 25 March 09 at 6pm (English)
McGill University, Leacock Building room 219 (McGill metro)
McGill QPIRG film festival

Screening followed by a discussion with Adil Charkaoui on security certificates in Canada, or how a democratic state can torture legally.

Most officials linked to faulty intelligence still in positions
 
Andrew Duffy, The Ottawa Citizen, 24 October 2008

Human rights activists say this country will foster "a culture of impunity" if security officials are not held accountable for actions that contributed to the suffering of four Canadians tortured in Syria and Egypt.

Kerry Pither, a human rights activist and author of Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror, said no Canadian official had been charged, disciplined or demoted for misconduct in the cases of Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin.

Two federal inquiries have found that faulty Canadian intelligence played a significant role in what befell the men in Syria.

"There is a culture of impunity in this country that is very troubling," Ms. Pither said. "The fact is that most of the officials who were in place and who carried out the deficient action that led to the torture of these Canadian citizens, most of these officials are still in place and many have been promoted, and they're still doing this work."

No One Is Illegal Radio reports about the frontline struggles for justice, dignity and self-determination by migrants, refugees and indigenous peoples.

The October 2008 edition of No One Is Illegal Radio is a collaboration with the People's Commission into Immigration "Security" Measures and the "Torture Canada" series. We hear directly from the people resisting and exposing torture, indignity and injustice, whether at Guantanamo in Cuba, at Guantanamo North at Kingston or at a local prison here in Montreal, as well the continued efforts to seek clear answers, transparently and openly, about Canada's direct role in rendition to torture.

On the October show, we hear about (and from):

For too long we've been kept in the dark about the role of CSIS and the RCMP in the detainment and torture of three Canadians
 
Kerry Pither, Citizen Special, Thursday, October 23, 2008
 
It's no wonder CSIS, the RCMP and the government wanted to keep the Iacobucci inquiry so secret. Despite all the faults with the process, the inquiry's report offers up a startling and shameful record of Canadian complicity in torture. It effectively clears the names of men that the government has tried to portray as terrorists. And it backs up everything these men have said about what happened to them. In short, the report is bad news for the government, CSIS and the RCMP, and good news for Ahmad Abou-ElMaati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin.

For years, these men have been saying they were tortured while they were in Syrian, and in the case of Mr. El-Maati, Egyptian detention as well. They've described in gut-wrenching detail how, among other unspeakable atrocities, they were whipped with cables, and, in the case of Mr. El-Maati, subjected to electric shock.

Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star, 23 Oct 2008

The headlines didn't match the stories on the report of the Frank Iacobucci inquiry into the alleged torture of three Arab Canadians abroad.

The former judge of the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that Canadian officials and institutions were complicit in the detention of at least two of them and perhaps of the third as well.

They were certainly complicit in the torture of all three.

He said Canadian diplomats failed to provide proper consular services to two of them, failed to detect torture and failed to inform Ottawa of allegations of torture.

Yet the main message of the media coverage is that Canadian officials only "likely contributed to" or "indirectly" contributed to the unlawful arrest, arbitrary detention and torture of the three men.

Iacobucci said so only for reasons of legal specificity, as explained on page 336 of his 544-page report.

He had no co-operation from Syria, Egypt or the U.S. so he does not know what role they played.

He also refused to "apply a `but for' test," meaning the men would not have suffered but for the actions of Canadian officials.

Robert Fisk, The Independent, 25 September 2008

Sami al-Haj, an Al Jazeera cameraman, was beaten, abused and humiliated in the name of the war on terror. He tells our correspondent about his struggle to rebuild a shattered life

Sami al-Haj walks with pain on his steel crutch; almost six years in the nightmare of Guantanamo have taken their toll on the Al Jazeera journalist and, now in the safety of a hotel in the small Norwegian town of Lillehammer, he is a figure of both dignity and shame. The Americans told him they were sorry when they eventually freed him this year – after the beatings he says he suffered, and the force-feeding, the humiliations and interrogations by British, American and Canadian intelligence officers – and now he hopes one day he'll be able to walk without his stick.