[LINK] "Officials' actions may have 'resulted indirectly' in torture"

[rfmcdonald]

The Globe and Mail's Colin Freeze is only one of many, many people reporting this news.

A highly secretive inquiry into alleged "torture-by-proxy" by Canadian counterterrorism officials has concluded that none of the overseas detentions of three Arab Canadians resulted directly from the actions of Canadian officials.

However, the inquiry did find that the three men were tortured in foreign prisons and that the mistreatment may have "resulted indirectly from several actions of Canadian officials" who were "deficient" in some of their actions, even if that had not been any civil servant's overriding intent.

"I found no evidence that any of these of these officials were seeking to do anything other than carry out conscientiously the duties and responsibilities of the institutions of which they were part," Former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci wrote in a 544-page report released Tuesday after exploring the actions of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

“It is neither necessary nor appropriate that I make findings concerning the actions of any individual Canadian official and I have not done so.”

[. . .]

[T]he report does contain some telling revelations, including that CSIS sent questions to Syria through a back channel. "In early December 2001, CSIS sent questions to a foreign agency to be sent to Syrian authorities to be put to Mr. Elmaati."

Even though the judge found that the intent of the questions was largely to test the veracity of the prisoner's coerced confession, "it is reasonable to infer that Mr. Elmaati's mistreatment by Syrian officials resulted indirectly, at least in part, from sending questions to be asked of Mr. Elmaati by Syrian officials."

Or, more succinctly, as he puts it, the Syrians wouldhave viewed the CSIS questions as "a green light ... rather than a red light" to stop.

He argued that "no Canadian officials should consider themselves exempt" from the responsibility of upholding human rights.

Foreign Affairs was deficient in providing consular services to some detainees, he writes.

A previous judicial inquiry had raised similar issues, even though it was not specifically tasked to look at these cases. For example, it was known that the Mounties had faxed a list of questions to Syria for interrogators to put to Mr. Almalki, and had used the coerced confession from Mr. El Maati to get a phone warrant in Canada.


"I found no evidence that any of these of these officials were seeking to do anything other than carry out conscientiously the duties and responsibilities of the institutions of which they were part," Former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci wrote in a 544-page report released Tuesday after exploring the actions of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

“It is neither necessary nor appropriate that I make findings concerning the actions of any individual Canadian official and I have not done so.”

At least we weren't directly involved.