The Associated Press
Amnesty International on Thursday called on the Canadian government to launch independent investigations into the cases of three more Muslim citizens who were detained and allegedly tortured in Syria while being interrogated about terrorist ties.
The human rights group also demanded that recommendations by a federal commission that reviewed the Maher Arar case, which spurred outrage among Muslims and civil libertarians, be quickly implemented.
The Ottawa engineer’s case has become the prime example of extraordinary rendition, the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries for interrogation without court approval.
Arar, a Syrian-born software engineer, was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was detained at New York’s Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002. U.S. authorities sent him to Syria for interrogation as a suspected al-Qaida member, a claim that has since been proven false.
After his release in 2003, Arar made detailed allegations about extensive interrogations, beatings and whippings with electrical cable in Syrian prison cells.
Justice Dennis O’Connor, the judge presiding over his inquiry, cleared Arar of any terrorist links, and urged that he be compensated by the Canadian government. He found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had sent unfair and inaccurate intelligence about Arar to Washington.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stopped short of apologizing to Arar, but told U.S. President George W. Bush he would file a complaint with Washington, saying Arar was done a “tremendous injustice.”
In his report released last month, O’Connor said three other cases raised troubling questions about the role of Canadian officials in the torture of Canadian citizens and urged the government to appointment independent investigators into those cases.
Similarities among the cases raise questions about Canada’s role in their ordeals, Alex Neve, Amnesty International’s director in Canada, told a news conference in Ottawa.
“All of these men were tortured in the same military intelligence building in Damascus,” he said. “All of these cases raise deeply disturbing questions about the possibility of Canadian complicity in what happened to them — complicity in arbitrary imprisonment, complicity in torture.”
Abdullah Almalki, also a Syrian-born engineer whose parents emigrated to Canada when he was a boy, Toronto truck driver Ahmad El Maati and Toronto-area geologist Muayyed Nureddin said they were still looking for answers about their torture and imprisonment without charge.
“Someone has to answer for the 22 months I spent in jail for no reason,” Almalki said. “And someone has to be held accountable for continuously feeding unreliable information that kept me in an underground solitary confinement cell for 482 consecutive days.”
Almalki said he was visiting relatives in Syria in 2002 when he was arrested on suspicion of having ties to terrorists, based on information provided by the Canadian government.
He was released by Syrian authorities in July 2004 and cleared of any terrorist links.
El Maati, a Kuwaiti-born Canadian, said his ordeal began on Sept. 11, 2001, when two agents from Canada’s intelligence agency showed up at his door. He said they threatened him when he asked for a lawyer and implied he would be subjected to torture by secret police.
“They told me they would stop my wife from coming to Canada if I did not cooperate with them,” he said. “Two months later, I was in a Syrian cell being tortured. “They asked me questions that could only have come from Canada.”
Neruddin, an Iraqi-born Canadian, was detained by Syrian officials in December 2003 as he crossed the Iraq-Syrian border on his way back to Canada after visiting relatives in northern Iraq. He said he was tortured, held in an underground cell by interrogators asking him questions that he believed were fed to them by Canadian officials.
OTTAWA Amnesty International on Thursday called on the Canadian government to launch independent investigations into the cases of three more Muslim citizens who were detained and allegedly tortured in Syria while being interrogated about terrorist ties.
The human rights group also demanded that recommendations by a federal commission that reviewed the Maher Arar case, which spurred outrage among Muslims and civil libertarians, be quickly implemented.
The Ottawa engineer’s case has become the prime example of extraordinary rendition, the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries for interrogation without court approval.
Arar, a Syrian-born software engineer, was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was detained at New York’s Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002. U.S. authorities sent him to Syria for interrogation as a suspected al-Qaida member, a claim that has since been proven false.
After his release in 2003, Arar made detailed allegations about extensive interrogations, beatings and whippings with electrical cable in Syrian prison cells.
Justice Dennis O’Connor, the judge presiding over his inquiry, cleared Arar of any terrorist links, and urged that he be compensated by the Canadian government. He found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had sent unfair and inaccurate intelligence about Arar to Washington.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stopped short of apologizing to Arar, but told U.S. President George W. Bush he would file a complaint with Washington, saying Arar was done a “tremendous injustice.”
In his report released last month, O’Connor said three other cases raised troubling questions about the role of Canadian officials in the torture of Canadian citizens and urged the government to appointment independent investigators into those cases.
Similarities among the cases raise questions about Canada’s role in their ordeals, Alex Neve, Amnesty International’s director in Canada, told a news conference in Ottawa.
“All of these men were tortured in the same military intelligence building in Damascus,” he said. “All of these cases raise deeply disturbing questions about the possibility of Canadian complicity in what happened to them — complicity in arbitrary imprisonment, complicity in torture.”
Abdullah Almalki, also a Syrian-born engineer whose parents emigrated to Canada when he was a boy, Toronto truck driver Ahmad El Maati and Toronto-area geologist Muayyed Nureddin said they were still looking for answers about their torture and imprisonment without charge.
“Someone has to answer for the 22 months I spent in jail for no reason,” Almalki said. “And someone has to be held accountable for continuously feeding unreliable information that kept me in an underground solitary confinement cell for 482 consecutive days.”
Almalki said he was visiting relatives in Syria in 2002 when he was arrested on suspicion of having ties to terrorists, based on information provided by the Canadian government.
He was released by Syrian authorities in July 2004 and cleared of any terrorist links.
El Maati, a Kuwaiti-born Canadian, said his ordeal began on Sept. 11, 2001, when two agents from Canada’s intelligence agency showed up at his door. He said they threatened him when he asked for a lawyer and implied he would be subjected to torture by secret police.
“They told me they would stop my wife from coming to Canada if I did not cooperate with them,” he said. “Two months later, I was in a Syrian cell being tortured. “They asked me questions that could only have come from Canada.”
Neruddin, an Iraqi-born Canadian, was detained by Syrian officials in December 2003 as he crossed the Iraq-Syrian border on his way back to Canada after visiting relatives in northern Iraq. He said he was tortured, held in an underground cell by interrogators asking him questions that he believed were fed to them by Canadian officials.
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