Righting A Wrong

It is understandably difficult for immigrants to entirely leave behind all memory and attachment to their countries of birth.  Invariably, having left that country of birth to take up permanent residence and citizenship in another country that offers them and their offspring greater opportunities of all kinds, they look back with fondness on what they left behind.  Memories of good times are what come to mind, and a wish to visit and to see extended family and old friends.

It's hard not to feel that such temporary returnees are simply engaged in doing what most people who come from abroad do, when the opportunity arises; make a temporary return 'home'.  And wherever that 'home' happens to be, it is still home, one's original home, even if the adopted one has assumed the proportions of the familiar, appreciated and trusted.  And the values of the original home are dangerously warped.

For Ottawa businessman Abdullah Almalki, a trip back home to Damascus, Syria with his family turned out to have been a most inauspicious decision.  One that would alter his life irremediably and which he would regret for the rest of his life. Mr. Almalki, though not born in Canada did become thoroughly Canadianized, attending high school and university in Canada, marrying there, having his children there, operating a business there. 

And, on the trip to Syria to see his ill grandmother, along with his parents, something unexpected occurred.  He was arrested by Syrian intelligence who interrogated him, blindfolded him, and eventually imprisoned him, where he spent 22 months without charge as a prisoner held in a small cell, questioned repeatedly, and tortured.  He was, in fact, one of three men who experienced a similar occurrence in the time after 9/11.

Many of the questions put to Mr. Almalki while in custody emanated from Canada, from the RCMP in particular who had shared their suspicion of him as an al-Qaeda-linked agent with their U.S. counterparts.  But it was RCMP investigators who had forwarded a set of questions to Syrian authorities.  They were not ignorant of the fact that torture was commonplace in Syrian prisons.

On Mr. Almalki's return to Canada after a Syrian judge finally cleared him on suspicion of terrorism involvement, a federal inquiry was launched in Canada and it determined that Mr. Almalki had been a victim of mischance.  That, in fact, having been labelled an "imminent threat" by the RCMP, his torture in Syria was partially due to the actions of Canadian officials.

The closed-door enquiry conducted by retired Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci drew the conclusion that he and two other Arab-Canadians who were detained in Syria and tortured there, were victimized partially as a result of RCMP and CSIS scrutiny and the certainty of wrong-doing they ascribed to the men and shared with foreign intelligence agencies.

There was also a failure on the part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to follow through on their formal obligation to inform the RCMP and CSIS that Syrian security services would without doubt employ torture to obtain 'confessions'.  And that it "would be contrary to Canadian domestic law, international law and foreign policy for a Canadian citizen to be questioned under duress at the behest of the Government of Canada".

It is undeniable that at this time there was a great alert within the international community, including Canada, with regard to the threat posed by Islamist jihadists against Western interests, particularly in the wake of a series of deadly attacks that followed 9/11; in Spain and in Britain and in Indonesia.  The aura of fear and suspicion was endemic and Canadian intelligence agencies were alert to potential problems.

In the process of surveillance of potential jihadists there were a number of innocent people wrongly suspected of terror activities, and these three men were among them.  The information gathered purporting to implicate them was both wrong and insufficient to represent as evidence of their being involved in terror plots.

Mr. Almalki is suffering the ongoing mental and physical trauma related to his incarceration and torture.  He has been unable to pick up the fractured pieces of his life to become financially stable and personally productive once again.  The Government of Canada has never offered an apology and/or financial compensation relating to its security agencies' inappropriate action.

Mr. Almalki has not aided his case one iota by instituting a lawsuit against the government to receive $100-million in compensation.  But it does seem clear that he has been dealt with unjustly.  And this is no reason for Canada to feel complacent about its part in this personal misfortune of a man who appears clearly to have been greatly wronged.

Syria may have been the blunt instrument of his miserable detention and torture, but Canada appears to have been complicit, and it ill behooves us to deny it.