RCMP Watch

Tenille Bonoguore - Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press

Justice Dennis O’Connor has called for a new watchdog to independently monitor and review all RCMP activities, including national security, in a bid to prevent a replay of the Maher Arar affair.

But the Canadian man whose deportation from the U.S. and subsequent torture in Syria triggered the lengthy inquiry says Canada must not become a police state.

Mr. Arar said he understood why the government had refused to say it would immediately implement the 13 recommendations included in the O’Connor report tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

But action was needed soon to help Canadians restore faith in their security agencies, he said.

“It’s understandable. The government needs time to look at the report and examine it. I just hope this will not take years, you know, weeks, maybe months. There is a lot at stake here,” Mr. Arar told a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday afternoon.

In the second report from the Arar inquiry, Judge O’Connor says an Independent Complaints and National Security Review Agency (ICRA) for the Mounties should have comprehensive powers to decide what information is necessary to keep the RCMP in check, and to subpoena documents and compel testimony from any person or entity.

The report also recommends the ICRA have the power to launch its own reviews of the RCMP’s national security activities.

“The case for giving an independent review body the mandate to conduct self-initiated reviews of the RCMP’s national security activities is now overwhelming,” Judge O’Connor wrote in the 600-page report tabled in the House of Commons Tuesday morning.

Mr. Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, was detained in New York in September 2002 and soon after deported by U.S. authorities. The Ottawa engineer wound up in a prison cell in Damascus, where he gave false confessions under torture to Syrian military intelligence officers about involvement with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.

In his first report, issued in September, Judge O’Connor concluded that faulty information the RCMP passed to the United States very likely led to the Mr. Arar’s deportation, detention and torture.

That report also found Canadian officials leaked inaccurate details about Mr. Arar to news media to damage his reputation and protect themselves. Before and after Mr. Arar’s October 2003 release from prison, anonymous sources quoted in media reports claimed the Ottawa telecommunications engineer was an Islamic extremist.

In the wake of the second report, released on Tuesday morning, Ottawa also announced a new inquiry to delve into the cases of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muyyed Nurredin, who were imprisoned in the Middle East under circumstances similar to Mr. Arar. They also say they were tortured.

“This inquiry is a clear demonstration that our new government is taking concrete steps to implement the recommendations made by Justice O’Connor,” Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said.

“In recent years the RCMP has had to dramatically expand the number and extent of its national-security investigations.”

Mr. Day said the new inquiry, to be led by Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci, will determine whether the detention and treatment of the three men in Syria or Egypt resulted from the actions of Canadian officials, particularly in regards to the sharing of information. That report will be due on January 31, 2008.

Speaking in the same room where three years ago he called for a public inquiry into his treatment, Mr. Arar said he was still waiting for the people responsible for his wrongful detention to be held accountable.

“The people who initiated a campaign of leaks, of false information to smear my reputation have never been exposed,” he said.

“Obviously, it’s our expectation that the government will continue to investigate. Stockwell Day has repeatedly said that the government is investigating the leaks. It’s our hope and expectation that at some point, the true information about who was behind the smear campaign will be made available through the investigations that are being undertaken.”

The scandal has already triggered the resignation of RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, which was announced last week and takes effect Thursday.

Mr. Arar filed a lawsuit against federal agencies and police in February 2004, at first seeking $400-million, now whittled down to $37-million. He plans to attend mediation talks Thursday and Friday.