Woman charged in smuggling probe

Canadian Cynthia Vanier allegedly plotted to bring Gadhafi son to Mexico

Charges have been formally laid against a Canadian woman who has been in a Mexican prison for more than 80 days over allegations she led a plot to smuggle a son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi into Mexico.

Mexican officials confirmed Wednesday Cynthia Vanier and four others were officially charged with human trafficking and participation in organized crime.

Early Wednesday, a letter was released wherein Vanier details the abuses and “torture” she says she’s suffered in the weeks since she was arrested by Mexican authorities and thrown in a bare concrete holding cell.

She says she’s suffered “physical abuse and torture by international definitions based on the Vienna Convention, to which Mexico is a signatory.” The letter was obtained by CBC and posted online in its entirety.

Vanier’s Canadian lawyer Paul Copeland said in the brief conversations he was able to have with Vanier, she called the prison in which she was being held a “hell hole.”

Mexican officials allege Vanier led three others in a plot to smuggle Saadi Gadhafi and his family into Mexico and to buy them a house, using fake documents — accusations her family says are absurd.

Vanier, 52, from Mount Forest, Ont., says she was accused of being a terrorist and denied access to Canadian consular officials or a lawyer. She says that after her arrest she was brought to a police station for questioning and forced to beg just to use the washroom.

After several hours in detention, Vanier writes, a translator was brought in to question her about a recent trip to Libya.

It’s believed suspicion fell on Vanier initially because she went to Libya last July to assess the security situation for Canadian engineering giant Snc-lavalin.

Around 10 p.m. on her first night under arrest, Vanier says she was taken to another building. As she was being driven away, she says she noticed her friend accompanied by a lawyer.

“I tried to yell out the open window,” she wrote. “As I did, one of the female officers struck me with her elbow on the lower right side over the kidney. I could hardly breathe, it hurt so much.” She says the officers then laughed at her.

Vanier says when she reached the next police station, her belongings were taken from her — including her wedding and engagement rings — and she was thrown in a small “cement hole.”

“I had not had anything to eat or drink and was given nothing. I was in a lot of pain and when they finally let me use the washroom, I was bleeding when I urinated,” Vanier says in her letter. “I knew this was due to the elbow. My back hurt, and I felt the swelling over my kidney.”

She says when she was taken to a doctor about her kidney trouble her concerns were ignored. “I thought I was going to die in there,” Vanier wrote.