statism watch

A legislator, actually doing their job and writing independent legislation to fix a national problem? It’s a novel idea but it just may work. One might have thought, or hoped, that this was already covered under existing legislation (eg; The Geneva Convention) but it appears not.

Flashback: Ottawa anticipated Afghan torture allegations: memo | CSIS secretly interrogated Afghan prisoners | Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer | Harper grilled over prorogation, Afghan detainee torture documents | MP threatens motion on Afghan documents | PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | Claims troops mistreated prisoners unfounded: military police | Peter MacKay, Red Cross discussed detainees in 2006 | Canada’s troops investigated for Afghan abuse | Colvin disputes witnesses’ detainee testimony | Tories sabotage Afghan committee meeting | Canada ‘defended’ torturer | Ottawa won’t release Afghan torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

CBC News
March 15, 2010

NDP human rights critic Wayne Marston has tabled a private member’s bill in the Commons that he says will prevent any government complicity in torture.

If passed, the Prevention of Torture Act would oblige officials to “report knowledge of torture to the proper authorities” and would establish diplomatic protocols for the “immediate repatriation for any Canadian citizen [abroad] at risk of torture,” Marston said Monday.

He said the proposed new law would not undermine Canada’s ability to investigate or prosecute those citizens in Canada, but would make it a criminal offence to use information acquired by torture.

“It would also call for a creation of a government watch list of those countries known to engage in torture,” said Marston, MP for Hamilton-Stoney Creek.

The House rarely passes private members’ bills, but Marston said he believes the bill will gain support because it recognizes that Canadians don’t condone torture “in any form, at any time.”

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By who, Dr. No? It’s difficult to believe that any state agency would do this sort of thing to its citizens – and yet there are plenty of examples of it. Wartime germ spraying tests in England. The MKULTRA brainwashing program. Yet here, truth is not only stranger than fiction – it literally trips you out. Ergot (the bread mould), has long resulted in psychedelic experiences for ancient Europeans who dubbed it St. Anthony’s Fire. Sandoz, the CIA, Timothy Leary, Huxley and others synthesized the drug from this mould and/or popularized its use in popular psychiatry , on unsuspecting psychiatric patients and in grotesque mind control experiments on soldiers. It was thought to create a ‘model psychosis’. In the controlled experiment undertaken in a small French village outlined below, a psychological false flag event has been staged. It’s a simple misdirection trick, like the street performer’s shell game, only in this case undertaken by the state. The bread, here, stands in for the more usual ‘terrorism’. The side effects of the drug have to be blamed on something (usually someone in the ordinary wartime false flag) . The desired outcome is to gather data on the social effects of mass drugging, undertaken without consent. And if it has a traumatizing, pacifying effect as well then so much the better. Just like torture.

Flashback: Report: France ‘deliberately’ used soldiers as ‘nuclear guinea pigs’ | ‘They were looking for the ideal Manchurian Candidate’ | Government Experiments on U.S. Soldiers: Shocking Claims Come to Light in New Court Case | Psychologists Helped Guide CIA Interrogations | Vets Sue CIA Over Mind Control Tests | Atomic-testing veterans to receive whopping $24,000 each in compensation | Remembering Brainwashing | Chinese Torture Techniques Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo | Canadian MKULTRA project mind control victim to tell of pills, shocks, brainwashing | Much of Britain sprayed in secret germ warfare tests

Henry Samuel, The Telegraph
March 11, 2010

French bread spiked with LSD in CIA experiment

Heads, made out of bread by this Thai artist. Seemed appropriate somehow.

In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted.

For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War.

The mystery of Le Pain Maudit (Cursed Bread) still haunts the inhabitants of Pont-Saint-Esprit, in the Gard, southeast France.

On August 16, 1951, the inhabitants were suddenly racked with frightful hallucinations of terrifying beasts and fire.

One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was being eaten by snakes. An 11-year-old tried to strangle his grandmother. Another man shouted: “I am a plane”, before jumping out of a second-floor window, breaking his legs. He then got up and carried on for 50 yards. Another saw his heart escaping through his feet and begged a doctor to put it back. Many were taken to the local asylum in strait jackets.

Time magazine wrote at the time: “Among the stricken, delirium rose: patients thrashed wildly on their beds, screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their bodies, that their heads had turned to molten lead.”

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The great English common law traditions of the Magna Carta are now open to question, apparently. It was the Magna Carter, forced upon the King by the nobles in a time of wildly extortionate taxes – including the first income tax in history – that first set the precedent that the King’s actions are subject to the rule of law, that the judiciary is an independent body. It is difficult to overstate the dangers of the recent erosion of this principle in Western nations.

Related: UK: Government fury as judges attack MI5, security services | MI5 chief denies cover-up claims over detainees | UK Top judge: Binyam Mohamed case shows MI5 to be devious, dishonest and complicit in torture | Britain reveals details of Binyam Mohamed torture | UK: Rights watchdog reveals Pakistani spies pressed by British to torture detainees | UK: Move to withhold evidence in MI5/MI6 torture collusion claim | UK: New evidence in Binyam Mohamed torture case | UK: Secrets of CIA ‘ghost flights’ to be revealed | UK: CIA ‘put pressure on Britain to cover up its use of torture’ | Revealed – the secret torture evidence MI5 tried to suppress | Guantanamo’s closure window dressing – overseas CIA ‘black sites’ to stay | ‘If I didn’t confess to 7/7 bombings MI5 officers would rape my wife,’ claims torture victim | MI5 faces fresh torture allegations | UK: Government makes ‘unprecedented’ apology for covering up Binyam torture | Obama administration: Guantanamo detainees have ‘no constitutional rights’ | Tortured Guantanamo detainee set free | UK agents ‘colluded with torture in Pakistan’ | Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners | U.K. resident held at Gitmo alleges Canadian involvement in torture | Senior judges attack US over ‘torture evidence suppression’

Afua Hirsch, The Guardian
March 8, 2010

The government will attempt today to have a case about torture heard entirely behind closed doors in a move that some lawyers say would extend secrecy to a new area of hearings, overriding ancient principles of English law.

This morning a case will come before three appeal judges in London in which seven men are seeking damages against the government for mistreatment during what they say was their “extraordinary rendition” and torture facilitated by the British security services.

The men include former Guantánamo Bay detainees Binyam Mohamed and Moazzam Begg. But the government is seeking to have the case held in secret, less than two weeks after the court of appeal ruled that seven paragraphs of secret evidence in the case of Mohamed should be made public.

Lawyers for the men say that if successful, the government’s application would extend closed proceedings into findings of fact in the civil courts for the first time.

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Flashback: CSIS secretly interrogated Afghan prisoners | Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer | Harper grilled over prorogation, Afghan detainee torture documents | MP threatens motion on Afghan documents | PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | Claims troops mistreated prisoners unfounded: military police | Peter MacKay, Red Cross discussed detainees in 2006 | Canada’s troops investigated for Afghan abuse | Colvin disputes witnesses’ detainee testimony | Tories sabotage Afghan committee meeting | Canada ‘defended’ torturer | Ottawa won’t release Afghan torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

CBC News
March 8, 2010

An internal government memo obtained by CBC confirms that Canadian authorities began formulating a plan for dealing with accusations of torture of prisoners in Afghanistan as early as March 2007 — months before such allegations first came up in the media.

The memo, drafted by officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs, instructs staff to inform the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Red Cross if “NGOs, relatives, media or otherwise make credible allegations that detainees transferred by CF [Canadian Forces] to Afghan authorities have been potentially abused following their transfer.”

Officials must also “follow up separately to address potential concerns with the conditions of detention,” the memo says.

First drafts of the document were written in March 2007, months before the Globe and Mail reported that 30 prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities by the Canadian military were “beaten, whipped, starved, frozen, choked and subjected to electric shocks during interrogations.”

The timing of the memo shows the government was concerned about the possibility that detainees were being abused while in Afghan custody long before revelations about actual cases of abuse became public.

The existence of a plan to deal with allegations of abuse came to light in November 2009 during hearings held by the parliamentary committee examining Canada’s mission in Afghanistan and the issue of detainee transfer.

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Flashback: Canada wanted Afghan prisoners tortured: lawyer | Harper grilled over prorogation, Afghan detainee torture documents | MP threatens motion on Afghan documents | PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | Claims troops mistreated prisoners unfounded: military police | Peter MacKay, Red Cross discussed detainees in 2006 | Canada’s troops investigated for Afghan abuse | Colvin disputes witnesses’ detainee testimony | Tories sabotage Afghan committee meeting | Canada ‘defended’ torturer | Ottawa won’t release Afghan torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

Murray Brewster, Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
March 7, 2010

OTTAWA–Canadian spies have been interrogating captured Taliban fighters in Afghanistan since 2006.

Officers with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have been working with Canadian military police intelligence officers, according to heavily censored witness transcripts filed with the Military Police Complaints Commission.

CSIS acknowledged in 2006 that its members gathered intelligence in Afghanistan, but the spy service’s precise role has remained in the shadows until now.

Intelligence expert Wesley Wark says the revelations are disturbing, partly because CSIS would have had no specialized knowledge of how to elicit information from Afghan prisoners at the time.

“I find that stunning,” said Wark, a University of Toronto historian who believes when it came to skill in interrogating prisoners of war, CSIS “lacked it in spades” in 2006.

Maj. Kevin Rowcliffe, former staff adviser to Canada’s overseas operations commander, told investigators with the commission (which handles complaints about the military police) there was debate within the army itself about how much experience its intelligence officers had in grilling prisoners.

“There was a lot of discussion in my headquarters about who was qualified to do interrogations, because we’re not talking the normal police interview, we’re talking interrogations, which (censored) were doing, not (military police),” he says in an edited transcript of an interview on Dec. 6, 2007.

A copy of the transcript was obtained by The Canadian Press.

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Now it really hits the fan.

Flashback: Harper grilled over prorogation, Afghan detainee torture documents | MP threatens motion on Afghan documents | PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | Claims troops mistreated prisoners unfounded: military police | Peter MacKay, Red Cross discussed detainees in 2006 | Canada’s troops investigated for Afghan abuse | Colvin disputes witnesses’ detainee testimony | Tories sabotage Afghan committee meeting | Canada ‘defended’ torturer | Ottawa won’t release Afghan torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

CBC News
March 5, 2010

Unredacted documents show officials hoped to gather intelligence, expert says

University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran says Canadian officials intentionally handed over Afghan detainees to be tortured in order to gather intelligence. (CBC)

Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert.

If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been digging deep into the issue and told CBC News he has seen uncensored versions of government documents released last year.

“If these documents were released [in full], what they will show is that Canada partnered deliberately with the torturers in Afghanistan for the interrogation of detainees,” he said.

“There would be a question of rendition and a question of war crimes on the part of certain Canadian officials. That’s what’s in these documents, and that’s why the government is covering up as hard as it can.”

Detainee abuse became the subject of national debate last year after heavily redacted versions of the documents were made public after Attaran filed an access to information request. They revealed the Canadian military was not monitoring detainees who had been transferred from Canadian to Afghan custody. It was later alleged that some of those detainees were being mistreated.

Until now, the controversy has centred on whether the government turned a blind eye to abuse of Afghan detainees.

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The question of prorogation isn’t about it how often it has been done, but why. In the past, prorogation was effected because the agenda of the house was finished, or because it was the only way Parliament was able to squeeze in a holiday at the time. It was not done in order to duck responsibility.

(Update 2010/3/5): The government has called for a ‘review’ by Justice Iacobucci of whether any of the documents in their hands would be ‘injurious’ if released. No indication of how long that might take.

Flashback: MP threatens motion on Afghan documents | PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | Claims troops mistreated prisoners unfounded: military police | Peter MacKay, Red Cross discussed detainees in 2006 | Canada’s troops investigated for Afghan abuse | Colvin disputes witnesses’ detainee testimony | Tories sabotage Afghan committee meeting | Canada ‘defended’ torturer | Ottawa won’t release Afghan torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

CBC News
March 4, 2010

Opposition demands unredacted documents over Afghan detainee transfers

Opposition MPs wasted no time during the first question period in the new session of Parliament to renew their condemnation of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament for six weeks.

Speaking Thursday in the first question period since Dec. 10, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff accused the Conservative government of trying to avoid facing legitimate questions about allegations of torture of prisoners transferred by Canadian soldiers into Afghan custody.

“Everyone in this House and everyone in the country knows why the prime minister shut down Parliament,” Ignatieff said.

Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton called for the prime minister to support limiting the government’s powers of prorogation and preventing its future abuse. Layton called the power “outdated” and cited the tens of thousands who took to the streets across Canada in January to protest the move.

“A lock on the doors of the House of Commons is not worthy of Canadian democracy,” said the New Democrat leader, who received a standing ovation from his caucus when he rose to speak. Layton disclosed last month he is being treated for prostate cancer. Harper said he was glad to see Layton “in fine form.”

The prime minister then replied that federal governments have prorogued Parliament almost annually on average for the past 140 years and his government had no plans to make changes to its use.

In response to Ignatieff, Harper acknowledged his own “unusual” use of the power in late 2008 to assert the principle that the opposition must face an election if it wants to replace the government.

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Do it. It will get the issue right back on the agenda, and teach this administration they can’t push issues to the side by shutting down parliament.

Flashback: PM Harper downplays detainee torture scandal, prorogation | Claims troops mistreated prisoners unfounded: military police | Peter MacKay, Red Cross discussed detainees in 2006 | Canada’s troops investigated for Afghan abuse | Colvin disputes witnesses’ detainee testimony | Tories sabotage Afghan committee meeting | Canada ‘defended’ torturer | Ottawa won’t release Afghan torture documents | Top general’s Afghan detainee reversal hikes pressure for public inquiry | Richard Colvin’s Afghan torture memos reveal government concealed prisoner access issues | Torture claims unreliable, officials say, despite having found evidence of torture | MPs vote public inquiry into Afghan detainees, Tories ignore majority motion | Torture claims weren’t probed, official testified | Harper government changes tune on Afghan prisoner issue | Colvin’s testimony true: former Afghan MP | David Mulroney testifies war confused issue of torture | Hillier says he saw no credible reports of torture | Afghan torture emails reached MacKay’s office | Opposition wants documentation prior to government torture rebuttal, PM cries foul | Canadian officials discussed torture in 2006 | Canada shamed on Afghan prisoner torture | Canada ignored torture warnings: Diplomat | Military lawyer stonewalls on Afghan torture claims | Ottawa was warned Afghan detainees might be tortured | Military commission suspends torture hearings, gags witness | Torture probe delayed; Tories deny gagging witness | Federal court limits Afghan detainee torture probe | Watchdog rejects government bid to delay Afghan detainee inquiry | Ottawa moves to block Afghanistan detainee torture hearings again | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’

CBC News
March 1, 2010

A Liberal MP is threatening to table a motion in the House of Commons that, if passed, could see the government in contempt of Parliament for not complying with a House Standing Order to produce unredacted documents about the handling of Afghan detainees by the Canadian Forces.

Ontario MP Derek Lee, who has drafted the three-part motion, said the government hasn’t complied with requests to release the documents, one made by the Afghanistan committee looking into the detainee situation and the other by an order of the House.

“If the government doesn’t deliver on the House order, and the majority in the House feels this way, they can find the government or a person in contempt and go about seizing the documents … just as a court would,” Lee told CBC’s Power & Politics.

Lee, who waged a year long-battle in 1991 with the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney over a parliamentary committee’s right to see government documents and won, said he hopes the government will act accordingly with parliamentary law and procedure.

“Otherwise, there’s confrontation coming between the government and the House of Commons,” he said.

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Flashback: MI5 chief denies cover-up claims over detainees | UK Top judge: Binyam Mohamed case shows MI5 to be devious, dishonest and complicit in torture | Britain reveals details of Binyam Mohamed torture | UK: Rights watchdog reveals Pakistani spies pressed by British to torture detainees | UK: Move to withhold evidence in MI5/MI6 torture collusion claim | UK: New evidence in Binyam Mohamed torture case | UK: Secrets of CIA ‘ghost flights’ to be revealed | UK: CIA ‘put pressure on Britain to cover up its use of torture’ | Revealed – the secret torture evidence MI5 tried to suppress | Guantanamo’s closure window dressing – overseas CIA ‘black sites’ to stay | ‘If I didn’t confess to 7/7 bombings MI5 officers would rape my wife,’ claims torture victim | MI5 faces fresh torture allegations | UK: Government makes ‘unprecedented’ apology for covering up Binyam torture | Obama administration: Guantanamo detainees have ‘no constitutional rights’ | Tortured Guantanamo detainee set free | UK agents ‘colluded with torture in Pakistan’ | Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners | U.K. resident held at Gitmo alleges Canadian involvement in torture | Senior judges attack US over ‘torture evidence suppression’

Afua Hirsch, Robert Booth, Ian Cobain, The Guardian
February 26, 2010

Ministers back MI5 after highly critical verdict on secret service involvement in Binyam Mohamed case

The government has launched a co-ordinated counter-attack against three of the country’s most senior judges who defied ministerial pressure today to publish a highly critical verdict on secret service involvement in the alleged torture of the Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed.

In spite of concerted attempts to keep criticisms of MI5 and MI6 secret, Lord Neuberger, the master of the rolls, made unprecedented public criticisms of the methods and ethics employed by the UK’s secret services, stating that officials had a “dubious record” of involvement in Mohamed’s mistreatment.

He said the security services made a false statement to the Cabinet Office’s intelligence and security committee by denying all knowledge of his ordeal. He added there was “reason for distrusting” assurances given by the security services about Mohamed’s treatment. The remarks were welcomed by human rights campaigners who said the court was right to push back against government pressure and exert its independence.

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Read Judge Iacobucci’s supplemental report here (PDF). The original Iacobucci Inquiry report may be found here (PDF), both on iacobucciinquiry.ca

Flashback: MPs call for clear policy against torture | CSIS chief backpedals on earlier torture statement, claims long-term official ‘misspoke’ | CSIS won’t rule out tips derived from torture | Canadians tortured overseas sue government | Tortured trio say report ‘vindicates us’

Tonda MacCharles, The Toronto Star
February 23. 2010

Muayyed Nureddin, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Abdullah Almalki wait for the start of the Iacobucci inquiry in Ottawa on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2008. The Canadian Press

CSIS agents wrote to and travelled secretly to Egypt to interrogate a jailed Toronto man and “likely contributed indirectly” to his torture ordeal there, new information revealed Tuesday.

The damning details were contained in a supplemental report released by former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci after federal objections to disclosures about Ahmad Elmaati’s fate were “resolved” in court. The government fought for more than a year over whether their release would harm national security.

The report shows the fruits of CSIS interviews with Elmaati in December 2002 were shared with the RCMP and two unnamed foreign agencies. It also shows a “don’t ask” approach on the part of CSIS to the risk of torture faced by Elmaati.

CSIS travelled to question Elmaati in mid-December 2002, where he had been transferred to after a long detention in a Syrian jail, where Iacobucci accepted he was also tortured.

But CSIS did not ask Elmaati about his physical treatment in either country, despite acknowledging that it considered whether the visit of Canadian officials could lead to further mistreatment.

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