CANADA’S SLOPPY COUNTER-TERRORISM LED TO $31.25M PAYOUT TO THREE MEN
Government agencies contributed to torture of these Canadians, writes Sukanya Pillay.
Recent news that the federal government settled for $31.25 million with three Canadian men falsely accused of terrorist links, imprisoned, and tortured overseas, was met with some public backlash.
Social media comments include variations on “waste of taxpayer money,” “wouldn’t mind a little torture for $10 million,” or “why should Canada pay for a foreign country’s actions?”
To its credit, the federal government apologized to the three men, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stating Canada should not “allow Canadians’ fundamental rights to be violated.” The Conservatives did not object to this settlement as they did to Omar Khadr’s $10 million payment earlier this year.
The latest settlement provides an opportunity for the government to explain to Canadians why it settled. It is also an opportunity for Canada to redefine its bottom line on global information-sharing in the current geo-political, global counter-terrorism context in which Canada is a key player.
Why did Canada settle? In 2008, a federal commission of inquiry found three Canadian citizens — Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin — had been falsely accused of links to terrorists, imprisoned in Syria and tortured. In the case of El Maati, he was also imprisoned and tortured in Egypt.
Three Canadian agencies, the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), were found to have indirectly contributed to the torture of the three men by sharing inflammatory and inaccurate information about each with countries known to torture, and in which the men were imprisoned.
The commission observed that Canada should not simply recycle and rely upon imported intelligence from countries that torture; Canada should not pass on unqualified information to foreign agencies; and Canada should recognize that “loose and imprecise language” used by its officials can have tragic human rights consequences for the individual.
The commission came out with its report on Almalki, El Maati, and Nureddin two years after the report of the Federal Commission of Inquiry regarding the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, another Canadian citizen. The Arar Inquiry exonerated Maher Arar, finding CSIS and the RCMP made serious mistakes passing on inaccurate information to the United States and Syria, resulting in Arar being “rendered” to Syria, where he was detained and tortured for almost a year.
The Arar Commission was mandated to make recommendations, which it did — regarding information sharing, accountability and oversight of Canada’s national security agencies. Yet, years later, those recommendations had not been implemented.
In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada found Canadian officials who questioned Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay did so knowing Khadr was being detained in a facility that tortured or used cruel and inhuman treatment; knowing there are protections in international law for children and for child soldiers; knowing Khadr did not have a lawyer present; and knowing Khadr had been subject to “mistreatment.”
The Supreme Court concluded that the questioning and subsequent passing on of information by Canada to the U.S. violated Khadr’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that these Charter violations had potential ongoing harmful impact in terms of Khadr’s then continued detention and charges. It is regrettable that the Khadr settlement was justified in economic terms (i.e. it was cheaper than litigating Khadr’s lawsuit against Canada) rather than legal obligations.
False narratives, wrongful imprisonment, and torture are failures of such magnitude that a society that tolerates these cannot claim to be democratic, just or humane.
A society that permits its officials to share false information, and thus contribute to torture, fails tests of both morality and effective counter-terrorism.
Canada must exchange information with foreign governments, and ensuring we heed the lessons of our mistakes is a safeguard for efficient counter-terrorism. The good news is Canada has passed legislation this year committed to addressing some of the gaping accountability and oversight holes we have had in national security.
The settlement to Almalki, El Maati and Nureddin should remind us of the human costs, and tragedies, of mistakes, inaccuracies and false narratives. Finally, the settlement may also send an important signal to allies and foes as to where Canada stands on torture and misinformation, even in the exigencies of global counter-terrorism. Sukanya Pillay is a visiting professor and Law Foundation of Ontario Scholar at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law.