Monday, October 6, 2008

Almalki at Windsor Conference on Unjustly Imprisoned

This is from the Windsor Star.
This is just a snippet from a longer article at the Star. The Iacobucci Inquiry is to release a report on Almalki and two other Canadians who were held in rather similar circumstances by October 20. It is probably fortunate for the government that it is coming out after the election.
However, the next government will have to deal with any fallout from the report. As the article mentions the investigation was carried out in secret. I expect even so that there will be considerable criticism of the intelligence and diplomatic services by Iacobucci. In spite of all my reservations I doubt that Iacobucci will come up with a complete whitewash. It will be a critical compromise whitewash. That's my guess!

Abdullah Almalki said his worst moment while being wrongly incarcerated came six weeks after he was arrested and then tortured day and night in a Syrian prison, including being whipped with cables until fainting. He'd been advised by his interrogators that they believed his innocence, but then word was passed on to Syrian officials by "faceless, nameless Canadian officials" that he remained a suspected terrorist. He was sent back to his tiny cell, dubbed "the grave," and a ramped-up torture regime continued for another 20 months.
Almalki, an Ottawa businessman and father of six, is one of the subjects of a mostly secret inquiry into extraterritorial detentions being conducted by retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci, who is expected to report to government on Oct. 20. Almalki, who described in detail some of the physical torture he endured, said he was never visited by any Canadian consular official even though his plight was known.
Lockyer described Almalki's ordeal as "being held in a Kafkaesque nightmare," and said that, like Mullins-Johnson, it was for a crime that never happened. Almalki said he too is suing the government.
Even after being cleared in public, the panelists said their ordeals continue.
Almalki said people still wonder, if he was so innocent, why he would have been arrested in the first place and then held. Four years after his release, his wife and daughters still receive counselling

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