DeHart denied asylum in Canada
TORONTO • A former American soldier who claims he was tortured by U.S. authorities probing the Anonymous hacker collective has been denied asylum in Canada, signalling a forced return to the United States in a bizarre, high-profile case.
“I cannot imagine any life in a country which has already tortured me,” Matt DeHart, 30, told the National Post Tuesday from an Ontario prison after he learned of the decision.
“Am I now to be given into the hands of my torturers?”
The decision by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) offered him a moral victory — finding no “credible or trustworthy evidence” he committed the child pornography offences alleged by the government — but extended him no protection, denying him refugee status, which would have allowed him to remain in Canada.
The IRB ruled that the United States “has a fair and independent judicial process” available to him where he can continue to fight his criminal charges and his civil rights complaint.
Mr. DeHart testified the pornography charges are a ruse to investigate an espionage and national security probe tied to his involvement in Anonymous and his operation of a “hidden” Internet server used to leak a classified U.S. government document, likely destined to WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing organization.
A National Post investigation in May revealed problems with the evidence in the pornography case and confirmed the FBI interrogated Mr. DeHart on espionage and security matters several times while in custody under unusual circumstances. As well, after crossing the border, he was questioned by Canada’s spy agency.
There are enough questions about the case “to cast sufficient doubt on the credibility” of the government’s case against Mr. DeHart, the panel ruled. The IRB, therefore, did not find serious grounds to believe he should be excluded as a refugee on criminal grounds, as the Canadian government had argued.
But that was not enough to win him asylum.
Mr. DeHart also needed to convince the IRB that he could not expect adequate state protection in the United States, a high bar as that condemnation is usually reserved for authoritarian regimes or unravelling states in crisis.
“The panel acknowledges that this particular claim is by no means a simple one,” wrote IRB adjudicator Patrick Roche.
“The principal claimant is alleging that he is being persecuted by the government of the United States, or agents of that government, for his perceived political beliefs as a hacker and whistleblower involved in leaking sensitive government information,” wrote Mr. Roche. “He alleges that he has been falsely accused of crimes in order to keep him incarcerated and he alleges that he had been drugged and subjected to interrogations without his constitutional rights.”
Despite evidence of the U.S. government’s harsh treatment of computer hackers, Mr. Roche found American justice could be trusted to deal with Mr. DeHart’s case.
The finding leaves Mr. DeHart vulnerable to prompt removal.
“We are exploring our limited legal options at this point including a judicial review with our attorneys,” said Mr. DeHart’s father, Paul. “Too early to tell what the next step is.”
But even an appeal does not automatically prevent deportation.
In early 2008, Mr. DeHart said he was an early member of Anonymous and helped in Project Chanology, the hacktivist group’s campaign against the Church of Scientology. Meanwhile, he also was a member of the U.S. Air National Guard and was training in the 181st Intelligence Wing’s operation of drone aircraft.
He also secretly ran a computer server on the Tor network, a hidden Internet service used to anonymously share files. In 2009, someone uploaded an unencrypted file to his server — Mr. DeHart testified the file “contained information that demonstrated malfeasance and criminal activity on the part of a government agency.”
Two months later, the DeHarts’ house in Indiana was searched and the family’s electronic devices seized on the basis of a search warrant investigating child pornography.
Matt DeHart was not arrested until he was stopped at the Canada-U.S. border in 2010, incarcerated and interrogated by the FBI about espionage and national security, not pornography.
He says he was tortured. He was then accused of trading child pornography two years earlier.
Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and before his case could go to trial, Mr. DeHart, along with his father and his mother, Leann, came to Canada in 2013 and claimed refugee protection.
The IRB’s assessment of the case against Mr. DeHart offers “some comfort” to the family, said Larry Butkowsky, Mr. DeHart’s lawyer.
“An IRB member would be seriously reluctant to say that, ultimately, he won’t ever be able to get adequate justice in the United States courts,” he said. “But at least an unbiased, informed decisionmaker said there are some real concerns here.”
The IRB declined to discuss the case.
Mr. DeHart had a detention review hearing already scheduled for Wednesday; despite the ruling, it is still scheduled to proceed.
He alleges ... he had been drugged and subjected to interrogations