Canada on torture : We're buying if you're selling

Canada's collateral fallout from Tuesday's Senate Intelligence Committee summary on the torture of prisoners at CIA “black site” prisons around the world.

"A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney’s office said Wednesday that Canada does not engage in, or condone, torture by national security agencies but ...  Canada will act on “a tip from any source” if Canadians’ lives are in danger."

This is our usual "we're buying if you're selling" approach to torture.

Feb. 2012 : "The latest directive says in "exceptional circumstances" where there is a threat to human life or public safety, urgency may require CSIS to "share the most complete information available at the time with relevant authorities, including information based on intelligence provided by foreign agencies that may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment."

April 2010 :  Day One of Omar Khadr's trial at Guantanamo. Confessions elicited via sleep deprivation, denial of pain medication, stress positions, being forced to urinate on himself and being used as a human mop, being terrorized by barking dogs, and being threatened with rape and torture. Khadr's defence team was only allowed to interview three of Khadr's 30 interrogators at Bagram and Gitmo, two of whom admit the 15 year old Khadr was threatened with rape.

FBI agent Robert Fuller

"... elicited from Khadr the identification of another Canadian, Maher Arar, who Khadr during interviews by Fuller claimed was training with al Qaeda operatives at a training camp at a time that, it later turned out, Arar was actually at home in Canada.

"In contrast to testimony he gave Monday, [FBI]special agent Robert Fuller told Khadr's war-crimes hearing that the young Canadian was not immediately able to name Arar, but did say he looked familiar." 

Shortly after Fuller reported the identification of Arar to the government, Arar was apprehended at JFK airport and rendered to Syria for interrogation there.

FBI agent Fuller also got Khadr to confess to throwing a grenade at US forces."

December 2009 : Harper shuts down parliament for two months in what turned out to be a successful strategy to muzzle parliamentarians regarding Richard Colvin's testimony about the torture of random Afghan farmers and taxi drivers under Canadian watch. 

Harper hired Bruce Carson to "stickhandle" the Afghan file "on a daily basis, involving senior officials from departments such as foreign affairs, defence, RCMP, justice and corrections". In 2007 a requisition for special boots to allow Correctional Services Canada inspection teams to wade through blood and shit in Afghan prisons was made public.

I think it's fair to say any report similar to the US Senate summary made partially public on Tuesday would never see the light of day in Canada.

April 2009 : "More than 16 months after Canada's security agencies cleared Abousfian Abdelrazik, government lawyers are now pressing him to admit to being a senior al-Qaeda operative, echoing American accusations extracted from Abu Zubaydah, water boarded more than 80 times under the Bush administration."

As noted by POGGE at the time : 

"While the rest of the world is coming to terms with the fact that the Bush administration was actually using torture to elicit false confessions in an effort to justify their invasion of Iraq, the Hapless Government™ is trying to use statements from a man who was waterboarded 83 times to prove that Abdelrazik is a terrorist."

March 2009 : The same day that CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian told the public safety committee there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture, RCMP spokesman Gilles Michaud tells the same committee :

"I want to be clear here - there is no absolute ban on the use of any information by the RCMP."

November 2006 : CSIS director Jim Judd said it had done nothing wrong by accepting as genuine the confession of Maher Arar, who was secretly and illegally bundled off by extraordinary rendition to a prison in Syria where he was held and tortured for a year.

"It does not necessarily follow that because a country has a poor human rights record that any information received from it was the product of torture," Judd told Parliament's public safety committee.

G&M : "In an Oct. 16, 2003 e-mail marked “secret,” officials of the intelligence unit of Foreign Affairs note that CSIS agents will pass on details of their then just-completed interrogation of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo and planned to “send two officers to Sudan next week to interview Abdelrazik.” 

Dec. 9, 2014 CBC : "This is a report of the United States Senate," Harper told the House of Commons on Tuesday. "It has nothing to do whatsoever with the government of Canada."
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Update : Tom Tomorrow
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Inside the Senate Committee on National Security

On Monday the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence heard from the watchdogs of both CSIS and CSEC - Chuck Strahl, Chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), and CSEC Commissioner Jean-Pierre Plouffe.

Here Plouffe is explaining to Senator Romeo Dallaire why Justice Mosley slapped down CSIS for outsourcing their spying to their Five Eyes partners (US, UK, NZ, and Australia) via CSEC. Plouffe :

"CSIS has a jurisdiction which is limited to Canada, whereas CSE's jurisdiction reaches abroad. So CSIS, in accomplishing its activities, believes it has need of assistance from allies abroad and in order to obtain this, CSIS has to go through CSE because CSE deals directly with allies. In Justice Mosley's decision, CSIS asked for assistance from CSE because both individuals in question were abroad. And what happened is unfortunately CSIS did not disclose to Justice Mosley that they sought assistance from Five Eyes. So it is legal for CSE to call on the Five Eyes, however in this case there was a warrant from the court that specified it be within Canada not abroad. Mosley said CSIS was lacking in candor and good faith." 

Plouffe added this has "complicated" CSEC's relationship with the NSA and other partners.
The impression you get from listening to Plouffe is that the Five Eyes partners share just about anything and everything, with the Canadian contact being CSEC.

CSIS watchdog Chuck Strahl addressed this as problem for the privacy of Canadians, saying "we must put legal caveats on CSIS/CSE-generated intel" shared with Five Eyes partners and third parties :

 "CSIS is concerned with erosion of control of intelligence given to CSEC and by extension to the Five Eyes community." 

"CSIS has developed information privacy protocols with only one Five Eyes partner."

While Strahl doesn't reveal which Five Eyes partner it is we do have a privacy protocol with, a 2009 Memo of Understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart does mention one between NSA and Canada. This was the Snowden-leaked doc which revealed an NSA agreement purporting to share raw unfiltered intelligence data with Israel, who is not a Five Eyes member, with the proviso that Israel weed out intel about Americans and other Five Eyes citizens .

Or as Strahl put it : "A Five Eyes partner may act independently on CSIS-originated info."

He said his office was limited to the oversight of CSIS and so his investigators were unable to follow threads that led into CSEC. Likewise Plouffe said his office could not stray into investigating CSIS. 

This was not, Strahl said, what O'Connor and Iacobucci had in mind when they each recommended a joint oversight, adding there is "no provision in current legislation, which is 30 years old, for parliamentary oversight", the only Five Eyes partner not to have any.

On Abdelrazik, Strahl said CSIS created an "exaggerated threat assessment" and "inappropriately disclosed classified information". 

The senators seemed far more concerned with what new measures had been put in place to prevent a "Snowden nightmare" in Canada than in the content his leaks revealed. They didn't ask a single question of Plouffe or Strahl about spying on the G20 in Canada and Brazil or allowing the NSA to build backdoors into internet encryption under our watch.

Not one.

For his part, Strahl said "Snowden has caused us to question how we work and that's good."

Asked what possessed him to come out of retirement last year to head up SIRC, Strahl laughed and said it was classified. 

I'll bet. SIRC has had an interim chair since the former SIRC chair and fraudster appointed by Harper, Dr. Arthur Porter, resigned in disgrace in 2011.

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Dec 20 Update : Plouffe's explanation above - on Justice Mosley chastising CSEC/CSIS for outsourcing their spying on Canadians to Five Eyes partners - goes public :

CSIS asked foreign agencies to spy on Canadians, kept court in dark, judge says

Canada's spy agencies chastised for duping courts

Canada’s spy agencies have deliberately misled judges to expand their eavesdropping powers unlawfully

Update : Senate Committee transcript up.
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Steve and the multinational man of mystery

I do hope someone is securing the rights to make a Made In Canada thriller about Stephen Harper's spy watchdog and his various business associates.

I'm referring of course to the Honorable Dr. Arthur Porter, "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone" and also "Member, Queen’s Privy Council for Canada” for life.

Really, this cast of characters has everything -  spies, dictators, terrorists, Russians, drug cartels, arms dealers, diamond mines, bribery, money laundering.  

Here's a storyboard to get you started ...

2008 : Dr. Arthur Porter is appointed to five-member CSIS watchdog committee, SIRC, on recommendation of PMO. 

June 2009  SIRC committee member Arthur Porter appointed to lead investigation into complaint CSIS 'was complicit in the detention' of Abdelrazik" six years previously.
Investigation goes nowhere.

June 2010  Porter promoted to Chair of SIRC by Harper

Also in June 2010, Porter wired $200,000 in personal funds to former Israeli agent and international lobbyist/arms dealer Ari Ben-Menashe to secure a $120-million grant from Russia to build Russian port facilities in Porter's native Sierra Leone where his family have diamond mining interests. The offshore payment was made via one of Porter's private companies, the Africa Infrastructure Group, but the deal fell through. 
Mr. Ben-Menashe was charged in the US in 1989 with illegally attempting to sell three military transport airplanes to Iran but acquitted on the grounds he was acting on official Government of Israel business. 

Ben-Menashe testified he had personally witnessed George H. W. Bush attend a meeting with members of the Iranian government in Paris in October 1980, as part of a covert Republican Party operation — the so-called October Surprise — to have the 52 U.S hostages then held in Iran remain there until President Jimmy Carter, who was negotiating their release, had lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan.

His house in Montreal was fire-bombed this past December.

During Porter's 2004 -2011 tenure as CEO at McGill University Health Centre, two former top executives at SNC-Lavalin allegedly authorized $22.5 million in payments related to getting the contract for a $1.3-billion superhospital expansion to Porter who was head of the selection committee. Payments were made to Sierra Asset Management Inc in the Bahamas at a bank run by a business associate of Porter's.

Nov 2011 Porter resigned from SIRC following the NaPo story on his dealings with Ben-Menashe and a month later from his position as CEO of McGill University Health Centre, where he left behind $300,000 in personal debts and a hospital with a $115-million deficit .
According to the McGill Daily, Porter sold the condo McGill fronted him half a million bucks to buy without paying back the $800,000 loan on the place.

Feb 2013 Arrest warrants issued for Porter for defrauding the government, accepting bribes, and money laundering in connection with alleged SNC Lavalin $22-million kickback to Porter via Sierra Assets Management to secure the hospital contract.  Also on the arrest warrant :

• Former MUHC director Yanai Elbaz.
• Former CEO of SNC-Lavalin Pierre Duhaime
• Former SNC-Lavalin VP Riadh Ben Aissa, in jail in Switzerland for the past year on suspicion of making bribes in return for contracts in Libya
• Jeremy Morris, Sierra Asset Management, Bahamas, 

SNC-Lavalin signed a deal to award Sierra Assets Management, formed in November 2009, 3 payments totaling $10-million for consultancy fees regarding a gas project in Algeria. The $1.2 billion Rhourde Nouss gas project deal was awarded to SNC  the same year by Sonatrach, Algeria’s national oil company.
Last Monday Algerian police raided SNC offices in Algiers regarding "allegations of bribery and kickbacks involving Sonatrach and public officials and agents hired by SNC-Lavalin to procure a number of large infrastructure projects."
FINTRAC, the Canadian federal agency that monitors money laundering, is investigating a trail of SNC payments to Porter and later Sierra Asset Management from 2007 to June 2012, six months after Porter left MUHC.


On May 27 Porter and his wife were arrested in Panama and are fighting extradition to Canada. Porter has stated he is too ill to leave his home in the Bahamas to fly all the way to Montreal to face charges, however he was seemingly well enough to embark on a business trip 1½ times that distance from Bahamas to Antigua, but was unfortunately nabbed en route in Panama.

Porter's Panamanian lawyer, Ricardo Bilonick Paredes, a former ambassador of Panama, testified at Manuel Noriega's 1991 trial that he :

"acted as a middleman between Manuel Noriega and Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s ... passing millions of dollars in bribes to Noriega, in exchange for the ability to fly planes packed with tons of cocaine from Panama to the United States."

Dr. Karol Sikora, Porter’s business partner at his medical cancer clinic in the Bahamas, was hired by the son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2009 to give a medical opinion on the condition of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrah - in prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.  Sikora secured al-Megrah's release from prison on compassionate grounds, testifying that he only had 3 months to live. Al-Megrahi lived another three years .

Currently Sikora is arguing Porter's self-diagnosed stage four lung cancer means he will not live long enough to stand trial.

Some have questioned how Steve could have displayed the poor judgement to appoint Dr. Arthur Porter, multinational man of mystery, to head up a sensitive position at SIRC giving him access to both Canadian and American intelligence.

You're kidding me, right?

May22 2014 update : National Post :
Arthur Porter and associate split $22.5M payout in ‘biggest corruption fraud in the history of Canada,’ Quebec inquiry hears

SNC-Lavalin made threats against Spanish bid rival

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Everybody loves a SIRCus

In response to media reports that CSIS had been complicit in the detention of Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik in Sudan, outgoing CSIS director Jim Judd requested that CSIS watchdog and review panel, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, "investigate and report on the performance of the Service’s [CSIS's] duties and functions with respect to the case of Abousofian Abdelrazik at the earliest opportunity". That was in March 2009.

Three months later Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn ruled that CSIS was indeed "complicit in the detention" of Abdelrazik in Sudan. Then in September of this year, newly released CSIS documents revealed the spy agency's attempts to delay Abdelrazik's return to Canada long enough for the CIA to spirit him off to Guantanamo, even as Foreign Affairs diplomats were arranging for his return, making this the biggest known Canadian  intelligence agency scandal since Maher Arar.

So how's that full investigation by SIRC requested by Judd coming along then? 

Dead in the water apparently.

Steve promoted Dr. Arthur Porter, the SIRC committee member charged with leading the Abdelrazik investigation, to chair of the committee in June last year, and then accepted his resignation this month following a NaPo story regarding Dr Porter's offshore cash payment to a former Israeli arms trafficker - now acting as a lobbyist for the Russian Federation - to sell infrastructure deals to Sierra Leone where Porter has mining interests and holds the title of "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone".

"I wish to state for the record that I have fulfilled with diligence my mandate," 

wrote Dr. Porter in his letter of resignation to Steve.


... which got me to wondering just what was so gosh-darned important in SIRC's mandate last year that it bumped the Abdelrazik investigation requested by CSIS right off the list.

From the Security Intelligence Review Committee 2010-2011 Annual Report
Checks and Balances : Viewing Security Intelligence Through the Lens of Accountability

The Lens of Accountability interested itself in five SIRC-initiated reviews and three public complaints.
The Reviews :

~ a pitch for "retooloing" SIRC to allow for "independent review" of Canada's other intelligence agencies as well as CSIS

~ "SIRC also followed through on its commitment to pay close attention to CSIS’s expanding foreign investigative activities. Although overseas operations unfold in unique circumstances and present different challenges, CSIS should strive to ensure that the management of its operations abroad mirrors, to the extent practicable, the standards of administration and account­ability that are maintained domestically."

~ "Today the Service is also reaching out to non-traditional partners, such as the private sector."

"In SIRC’s opinion, an effective strategy would involve identifying those sectors with the greatest potential to be of investigative value to the Service. ... the Service strives to engage and support the private sector’s security needs in other ways. Efforts are also underway to increase the number of security clearances for individuals in the private sector."

~ "an appreciation of the way in which the internet supports CSIS’s activities"
although it notes :

" At issue was the volume of information pertaining to young people being retained by CSIS as part of its operational reporting."

~ A positive review of CSIS’s cooperation "with a “Five Eyes” partner" - which could be either the US, UK, Australia, or NZ.

Note to SIRC : If you have to use evasive terminology like "a Five Eyes partner" in your "positive review" rather than actually name the country you are feeling positive about, it's not really much of a public account, is it?

~ "a positive impression of RCMP–CSIS cooperation"

"The relationship between CSIS and the RCMP, in particular, has moved to the forefront following the passage of the Anti-terrorism Act (2001). As a result of this legislation, CSIS and the RCMP have had to work more closely together"

~ "Canada is experiencing levels of espionage compa­rable to the height of the Cold War."

~ Afghan detainees.

" In particular, SIRC’s review found no indication that in the period during which CSIS conducted detainee interviews, CSIS officers posted to Afghanistan had any first-hand knowledge of the alleged abuse, mistreatment or torture of detainees by Afghan authorities."

however :

"SIRC noted that CSIS did not comprehen­sively document its role in the interviews of Afghan detainees by keeping records that would confirm the numbers and details of all of the detainee interviews"

SIRC also handles citizen complaints against CSIS. This year three were investigated and written up, which included the following complaints :
CSIS failing to identify itself as CSIS, harrassment of family members, suggesting to interviewee that a lawyer was not necessary, delay in providing security assessment for a site access, and allegedly providing an "unjust, unfounded, and unethical" assessment to Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding  a complainant's application for permanent  resident status.

Aside from providing some gentle advice, like that in its reports to Citizenship and Immigration Canada "the Service not include certain information unless it has been corroborated", SIRC did not find anything unduly alarming in its public report of the three out of 48 new and carried-over complaints.


I'm sure the four out of five health industry experts that comprise SIRC's review panel on CSIS did the best they could with their unwieldy $3-million Lens of Accountability. Unfortunately that lens is looking the other way in the case Abousfian Abdelrazik, the largest CSIS intelligence scandal since Maher Arar.
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Update : SIRC reviewed CSIS re Abdelrazik for their 2012-2013 report, covering the period from March 2003 to December 2004. 
It found "no indication that CSIS had requested Sudanese authorities to arrest or detain Abousfian Abdelrazik" , but that "CSIS inappropriately and, in contravention of CSIS policy, disclosed personal and classified information." Further, "in mid-2004 in preparation for Mr. Abdelrazik’s possible release, SIRC found that CSIS assessments to its government partners contained exaggerated and inaccurately conveyed information" and that "CSIS excessively reported, and hence retained in its operational databases, a significant amount of information not related to the threat, originating from individuals who were not targets."
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CSIS recycles old leaks slagging Abdelrazik, Charkaoui

A leaked 2004 CSIS report from LaPresse on Thursday purports to be a summary of a conversation between Abousfian Abdelrazik and Adil Charkaoui  in 2000 in which they plotted to blow up an airplane enroute between Montreal and France. It has already been enthusiastically repeated across our national press :
CBC : CSIS file reveals plot to bomb plane: La Presse
Gosh, CBC, your previous nice pix of Abdelrazik and Charkaoui are now replaced by scary ones
G&M : Abdelrazik and Charkaoui plotted plane bomb: report
AFP : Two Canada terror suspects plotted France attack: report

etc. ... etc. ...
Never mind that this 'news' was already reported nearly two years ago after a federal court judge annulled Charkaoui's security certificate because government lawyers refused the judge's order to reveal their wiretap evidence, citing "security concerns".
About now you are probably wondering what kind of "security concerns" trumps giving evidence about someone you allege was plotting to blow up a plane.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney :

"I read the protected confidential dossiers on such individuals, and I can tell you that, without commenting on any one individual, some of this intelligence makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” he said. “I just think people should be patient and thoughtful and give the government and its agencies the benefit of the doubt."

The re-leak has nonetheless been greeted with skepticism by Boris, Dr. Dawg, Pogge, Sixth Estate and no doubt many others because we all remember previous security leaks from government officials who are more than happy to anonymously rejig conveniently-timed select bits of complete bullshit to a cooperative media.


Let's review just the anonymous bullshit security leaks about Maher Arar for instance, for which no public officials were ever called to account and who are presumably still happily at it.

In 2002 while Arar was being tortured in Syria, an anonymous official source linked Arar to "a suspected member of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network." That suspected member was Abdullah Almalki - later cleared by the Iacobucci inquiry.

Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar :

CanWest bureau chief Robert Fife, July 24, 2003 :"Terror threats in Ottawa: Two kinds of fear: Report says
Syrian intelligence helped U.S. to foil al-Qaeda plot on target in Ottawa : One official would only tell CanWest News Service that Mr. Arar, a 36-year-old Ottawa engineer, is a 'very bad guy' who apparently received military training at an Al-Qaeda base. "

As noted by Justice O'Connor in the report : "the apparent purpose behind this leak is not attractive: to attempt to influence public opinion against Mr. Arar at a time when his release from imprisonment in Syria was being sought by the government of Canada"
Coincidentally the sudden re-issuing of this "new" leak about blowing up planes happens to coincide with Abdelrazik's attempt to get his name off the UN 1267 terror list this month.
To continue :

G&M, Oct 10, 2003 : unnamed Canadian government sources said that Mr. Arar had been “roughed up,” but not tortured, while in detention in Syria

CTV, Oct. 23, 2003 : “senior government officials in various departments” said that Mr. Arar had provided information to the Syrians about al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and cells operating in Canada.

Juliet O'Neill, Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 2003 : “Canada’s dossier on Maher Arar: The existence of a group of Ottawa men with alleged ties to al-Qaeda is at the root of why the government opposes an inquiry into the case.”

Fife : Dec. 30, 2003 : "US, Canada '100% sure' Arar trained with al-Qaeda" : “a senior Canadian intelligence source said the United States had an extensive dossier on Mr. Arar and that “if the Americans were ever to declassify the stuff, there would be some hair standing on end."

Toronto Star : Learning from media mistakes in Arar case May 2009 :

"Unnamed officials also told Craig Oliver at CTV News that Arar was only released because he had given information to the Syrians about Al Qaeda and about other Canadians suspected of terrorism activities. Oliver later explained that he felt the story was credible because his sources were senior officials in two different government departments. Nonetheless, years after the Arar inquiry's report, he apologized to Arar in person for running the story. He also told him of an offer he had turned down – a photograph of Arar training in a camp in Afghanistan. As he describes: "The source wanted me to use the information without showing me the photograph. That was a very solid source... This experience has made me more skeptical... I knew these people very well."

So you'll have to forgive the rest of us if we also share Craig Oliver's reluctance to be conned into accepting any more conveniently-timed leaks and smears from anonymous security officials who for all we know are the same ones who previously set out to turn public opinion against Arar even as they destroyed his life for reasons they have yet to account for.
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Labour unions hire Abdelrazik

In defiance of a UN edict making it illegal to hire Abousfian Abdelrazik and to put pressure on our government to get him off that 1267 terrorist blacklist, the Canadian Labour Congress will hire Abdelrazik for a week, while the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the International Association of Machinists will each hire him for a day. They are hiring him to tell his story, which will presumably include his being kept an exile inside his own country.

The Canadian government froze his assets in accordance with the UN list earlier this year, although they are permitting him to have an allowance from it, but he is still not permitted to work.

Here, by the way, is what the UN Security Council 1267 page has on Abdelrazik. Good grief. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon maintains it's up to Abdelrazik to get himself off the list, although no one has yet succeeded in getting off it without the help of their government.

After Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan at the bequest of the CSIS in 2003, he was imprisoned for twenty months during which time he was beaten and tortured and later interrogated by two CSIS agents. Abdelrazik says he also remembers being questioned in Sudan by Foreign Affairs parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai, who questioned him about Osama bin Laden and what he thought of Israel.

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Combating Terrorism Act 2010, redux, redo

Your government announced today it needs more powers to combat terrorism.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson : "These provisions are necessary to protect our country from the threat of terrorism."
A redo of the panicky now defunct Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, the new Combating Terrorism Act includes preventive arrest and forcing people to testify at secret hearings about terrorist acts that might happen in the future, and if you don't like it you can go to jail for up to a year with a judge's option to extend.

There are more safeguards included this time round - you can have a lawyer! at any time! - which will only allow the Libs to go along with it so as not to be painted as soft on terrorism. Mark Holland, Liberal critic for Public Safety and National Security, already looking to cave.

The argument in favour of anti-terrorism legislation is that criminal law only deals with crimes already committed. What to do about people who feel that crimes perpetrated by the state against their people require a response like blowing things up?

The argument against it is ... well, let's look at how they're doing with the laws they've already got.

The federal government case against Ottawa terror suspect Mohamed Harkat appears to have suffered a significant blow Wednesday when a document was introduced in court showing that Abu Zubaydah, once considered a master terrorist and 9/11 mastermind, actually had nothing to do with the attacks.

Even more surprising, the document, which quotes U.S court filings declassified last week, shows that Zubaydah, once believed to be one of the top leaders in al-Qaeda, was not even a member of the terrorist group.

The unfortunate Abu Zubaydah got waterboarded 83 times in the US, coughed up Harkat's name, and the Canadian government obligingly held Harkat for 3 1/2 years.
A clue about the reliability of Abu Zubaydah's "testimony" might have been found in his confession to terrorist acts committed after his imprisonment, but sadly, no, it wasn't.

Abdelrazik? "Closely associated" with the same hapless Abu Zubaydah.
Result? Abdelrazik was tortured, then exiled in Sudan for six years. Still on the UN's 1267 terror list, and the Canadian government has frozen his bank account and he can't work.
Help him get off that list? Blow me, said Minister of Public Security Peter Van Loan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon.

Maher Arar - the first inkling for many of us that something had gone terribly wrong.
Adil Charkaoui - in custody 21 months, now free.
Hassan Almrei - in custody for 8 years, now free.
Mahmoud Jaballah - in custody for 6 years, now free.
Mohammad Mahjoub - in custody for 7 years, freed, requested return to jail in 2009 to protest bail conditions worse than jail.
Benamar Benatta - rendered to US for 5 years
Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin

And then there's the ever-expanded definition of what constitutes terrorism.
According to Jason Kenney's "infandous" Mr. Velshi, George Galloway's proposed visit to Canada last year to give a speech entitled "Resisting war from Gaza to Kandahar" was sufficient for him to brand a sitting British MP on tour in the US "a terrorist supporter".

Nothing about these vile clowns inspires any confidence in their wanting to accrue more secretive powers to their already abused arsenal of abominations.
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Abdelrazik sues Ottawa and Lawrence Cannon for $27-mil

After nearly six years of exile, prison and alleged torture in Sudan "at our request", Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik is suing Ottawa for $24-mil and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon personally for $3-mil.


Mr. Justice Russel Zinn of the Federal Court ordered the government to bring him home in June after years of cruel cat-and-mouse games with his constitutional rights under both Cons and Libs.

Zinn :"CSIS was complicit in the detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by the Sudanese authorities in 2003."

Despite having been cleared of any wrongdoing by CSIS, the RCMP, and Sudan, for five years Abdelrazik was repeatedly assured by DFAIT that they would grant him an emergency passport only to have them withdraw the offer again under various pretexts. They had no intention of delivering.

From the excellent Paul Koring :

"CSIS agents interrogated Mr. Abdelrazik in a Khartoum prison, offering him – according to Mr. Abdelrazik – freedom if he would help them and warning him if he didn't he would never return home to his family and Sudan would be his "Guantanamo Bay."

In his lawsuit, Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyer claims: “While in Kober prison, he was deprived of sleep, subjected to verbal assaults, pummelled, kicked and flogged with a rubber hose on his back.” At other times he was hanged by his wrists, he said.

"This does not amount to torture or mistreatment. It is the reality in Sudan and he would not have been targeted for mistreatment any more than other fellow detainees," senior Foreign Affairs official Odette Gaudet-Fee said.
Another suggested Mr. Abdelrazik mutilated himself.

It is presumed that CSIS' original interest in Abdelrazik came via Abu Zubaydah, the schizophrenic halfwit waterboarded 83 times in 2002 in order to elicit a false confession linking Sadaam and al-Qaeda that could be used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.
CSIS has said while it once might have received evidence derived from torture, it no longer does.
Lawrence Cannon really has this one coming.
In July, Abdelrazik asked the federal government to help him get his name removed from a United Nations terror watch list so he could lead a normal life - get a job, healthcare, a bank account. This can only be done with the help of your own government; Cannon suggested Abdelrazik get himself off it.

It seems the only way to get this bunch of crackerbox politicians to obey Canadian law is to take them to court and embarrass them with massive lawsuits.

Had enough of this yet, Canada?
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Cannon and Van Loan tell Abdelrazik to piss off

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Abdelrazik wants the federal government to help him get his name removed from a United Nations terror watch list so he can lead a normal life again.

You know - get a job, go to a doctor, get on a plane, have a bank account, accept anything from anyone without risk of their being charged with being in violation of the UN's 1267 shunning regulations.

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Above are the responses to Abdelrazik's lawyers from Minister of Public Security Peter Van Loan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon telling them to piss off.

Click em to read em, courtesy of The Peoples Commission via the indefatigable Toe at BnR.

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Cannon adds further insult to injury by advising Abdelrazik to go ahead and try to get off the list himself although to date no one has ever been removed from that list without a supporting submission from their government.

Indeed the Chairman of the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee noted two weeks ago that although Abdelrazik went on the list in 2006 - some 3 years after Canada had him arrested in Sudan - the committee has not gotten around to an indepth assessment of his case yet.

The list of 513 people currently includes 38 people presumed dead.

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"Sudan is your Guantanamo" CSIS told Abdelrazik

Abousfian Abdelrazik spoke out this morning about his exile, his torture, the false charges against him, the harrassment of his dying Canadian wife and her family by CSIS before he returned to Sudan to care for his ailing mother in 2003.

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He could identify by sight, he told us, the Canadian agents who questioned him while he was in captivity in Sudan, including the one who told him "Sudan will be your Guantanamo" and that he was never coming home.

He describes being interrogated in Sudan by Foreign Affairs parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai, who questioned him about Osama bin Laden and what he thought of Israel.

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I watched it on tv.

Paul Koring, Dr. Dawg, and Kady were there.

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There's a sense in which this case is more important than that of Maher Arar in terms of how Canadians, at least Muslim Canadians, can expect to be treated by our government and whether CSIS is under anyone's control any more.

There was no US middleman here, no wiggle room in which Canadian intelligence agencies could be said to have been overpowered or shut out of the process by US security forces.

This one is ours.

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In the meantime, Abdelrazik is still on that 1267 UN blacklist : he cannot work, he cannot receive money or medical attention, he cannot fly, he cannot receive gifts.

He is currently an exile in Canada.

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UPDATE : "NDP foreign-affairs critic Paul Dewar called on the government to launch a public inquiry even more far reaching than the judicial probe into the imprisonment and torture in Syria of Maher Arar. ... there was no middle man," Dewar said.
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Deepak Obhrai is currently away in Asia.

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"This is The Current" with another ad for the terrorism industry

Following his 30 hour journey back to Canada from Sudan on Saturday, Abousfian Abdelrazik did the last six hour journey from Pearson Airport to his home in Montreal by van because "federal officials barred him from the one-hour flight from Toronto". (h/t Dr.Dawg)
A one hour flight entirely within Canadian airspace.

CBC's The Current did not mention this in their segment on Abdelrazik this morning. However in their quest for fair and balanced reporting, they did follow up their interview with Abdelrazik's lawyer Yavar Hameed with one from media terrorism expert and torture advocate Neil Livingstone, introduced only as "Chairman and CEO of the security consulting firm Executive Action and the author of nine books on terrorism."

Mr. Livingstone explained that Abdelrazik was probably incriminated during the "extremely valuable" and "credible" testimony provided "under duress" by Abu Zubaydah and said that CSIS's "sister organizations in the US" have taken note that Canada is "not prepared to go to the mat for Abdelrazik".

From Mr. Livingstone's own description of his company Executive Action :

"Think of us as a McKinsey & Company with muscle, a private CIA and Defense Department available to address your most intractable problems and difficult challenges."

Indeed Executive Action boasts former CIA Director James Woolsey and former FBI Director William Sessions on its Senior Advisory Board and claims over 1300 media interviews on terrorism.
From Mr. Livingstone's own bio at Executive Action :

"He predicted the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center on CNBC six months before they occurred, said the terrorists would drop both towers, and that Osama bin Laden would be behind the attacks."

Mr. Livingstone also advocated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, where his company subsequently won several 'reconstruction' contracts, and is an advocate of destabilising Iran.
Last year in an article on counter-terrorism profiteering - "What did you do in Iran-Contra, Daddy?" - Larisa Alexandrovna traced Livingstone's career back to the Iran Contra affair and the push to establish an Iran-anthrax-al Qaeda link.

I don't expect The Current to have provided all this in their bio of Livingstone, but their propensity for reaching for the nearest rightwing US advocate for the terrorism industry without identifying him as such to comment on Canadian affairs continues to annoy.
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Abdelrazik is home

"I’m very glad to come back home. I’m happy," Abdelrazik said.

"I want to say to my supporters from coast to coast, in every town, every city, every village, thank you very much for your supporting me and through your efforts, now I am here," he said.

"I’m proud to be a citizen of this famous nation. Thank you very much."

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And thank you, Mr Jain.

U.N. turning the screws on Abdelrazik

Yesterday, a mere three days after the government announced it will comply with the Federal Court decision ordering it to bring Abdelrazik home, the United Nations Security Council blacklist committee decided to publish their reasons for putting him on its 1267 blacklist back in 2006. The allegations mirror similar charges posted on the U.S. Treasury Board website three years ago. What impeccable timing.

He is, they assure us, "associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban" and "a key member of a Montreal terrorist cell". Their case :

He attempted to go to Chechnya to fight against the Russians - twice - they say.
Really? And we're holding that against him?

He knew Ahmed Ressam, the Millenium Bomber who attempted to attack LAX in 2000.
Yes and as an avowed repudiator of terrorism, Abdelrazik testified against him for the prosecution, an act he could be forgiven for coming to regret in light of how that is turning out for him.

He told one individual that he was "personally acquainted with Osama bin Laden."

He knew Abu Zubaydah, the schizophrenic halfwit waterboarded 83 times in 2002 in order to elicit a false confession linking Sadaam and al-Qaeda that could be used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.
"That information is the fruit of torture," responded Abdelrazik's lawyer.

Abu Zubaydeh again. Abu Zubaydeh is the sad source of many allegations under torture.
Rather surprised that the UN Security Council 1267 page would have the fucking audacity to bring him up actually, but now that they have, let's go with that :

Abu Zubaydeh's lawyer, Brent Mickum :

Who is Abu Zubaydah? He was born in Saudi Arabia, but is not a Saudi citizen. He was educated in India. Following his university training, he traveled through the United States, considering possible universities where he might pursue his master's degree. In an interview with ABC, former CIA agent John Kiriakou described him as "a very friendly guy" who wrote poetry and was keen to talk about current events and compare the differences and similarities between Islam and Christianity. That has been my experience as well.

Like many other young Muslims before him, Zayn ultimately embraced the teachings of the Qur'an and traveled to Afghanistan to fight against communist insurgents who remained after the withdrawal of the Soviet army. In 1992, while fighting on the front lines, he was injured in a motor attack that left him with two pieces of shrapnel that remain embedded in his head to his day. So severe were his injuries that he lost the ability to speak for more than one year. His memory is compromised even today. He cannot remember his mother's name or picture her face. He cannot remember his father's name, but recalls that he looked like a prominent movie star in the Arab community. Although Zayn ran a news agency with a partner, he cannot remember his former partner's name.

Later, when Zayn returned to the front lines, he was told that he was no longer fit for fighting because couldn't remember how to shoot.

Zayn was never a member or a supporter of any armed forces that were allied against the United States. He had no weapon when he was taken into illegal custody. He never took up arms against the United States nor against its coalition allies. He was not picked up on a battlefield in Afghanistan at the time of his detention, but was taken into custody in Pakistan, where he was wrongfully attacked, shot, and nearly killed. So serious were his wounds that a surgeon from John Hopkins University was flown to Pakistan to perform emergency surgery to save the life of a man the Bush administration believed to be the number three man in al Qaeda."

We await the UN Security Council's explanation on why all their hardwon resolutions against torture should be laid aside to countenance the torturing of a halfwit on behalf of US colonialism.
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Abdelrazik is expected to land back in Canada on Saturday, accompanied on the flight by his lawyer, a Foreign Affairs official and two RCMP.
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Cons agree to bring Abdelrazik home

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced in Question Period today that the government will comply with, rather than appeal, the Federal Court decision ordering it to repatriate Abdelrazik,
stranded in Sudan since 2003.
Good.
As Chris Selley writes : "It's all over but the thousands of unanswered questions"
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Here's one.
How much did this July 2006 US Embassy memo figure in extending Abdelrazik's exile?

"US Embassy DCM John Dickson made a demarche this afternoon re Abdelrazik.
... He had been asked to deliver a message from the White House, specifically from senior levels of the Homeland Security Council. [US] Ambassador Wilkins might be calling Ministers Toves [sic] and Day tomorrow. Frances Townsend might also be calling.

Dickson's main message was that the US would like Canada's assistance in putting together a criminal case against Abdelrazik so that he could be charged in the US. The US had information on Abdelrazik but at this point, it was not enough to charge him; the same might be true for Canada. If Canadian police or security agencies shared what they had, it might prove to be enough for the US to proceed, as the threshold for prosecution there was lower than here."

Days later the US added Abdelrazik to the UN Security Council terrorist blacklist, despite not having sufficient evidence to charge him under their 'lower threshold'.

And just so we're clear here - the threshold for action was spectacularly lower.
Recall that Maher Arar was renditioned to Syria the day after a wounded 14 year old Omar Khadr in Bagram prison was shown photos of Arar and coached into saying that "he looked familiar", and the US evidence against Abdelrazik appears to be the unfortunate spinoff derived from waterboarding a schizophrenic halfwit 83 times in 2002 in order to elicit a false confession linking Sadaam and al-Qaeda that could be used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.

Here's a question :
We don't know what correspodence transpired after the memo above, written three years after Arar returned to Canada and during the time we were hearing advance notice of the O'Connor report which would clear him of all terrorism allegations two months later. Was Abdelrazik kept in exile at the Canadian Embassy in Sudan to avoid a similar debacle by someone who decided he was safer left there than he would be back in Canada?
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