CSIS trusted foreign spy agencies not to torture

Practice is a loophole in international law, critics say

OTTAWA— Newly released memos show Canada’s spy agency revealed its interest in people to foreign partners in two cases after receiving assurances the individuals would not be tortured, a practice human-rights advocates say shirks the law and puts vulnerable detainees at risk.

In one case, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) got the green light from a high-level internal committee to interview a Canadian detained abroad as long as captors gave “proper assurances” the person would not be abused.

In another case, the spy service received the go-ahead to send information to an allied agency about a terrorist target of mutual interest if such “assurances” were provided, the internal CSIS memos reveal.

The two cases were among 10 instances in which the CSIS information sharing evaluation committee applied a ministerial directive on the use and sharing of information that may have been tainted by torture or could give rise to someone being brutalized in an overseas prison cell.

The Canadian Press used the Access to Information Act to obtain CSIS notes outlining the 10 cases — with names and other identifying details stripped out — as well as a spring 2014 memo to spy service director Michel Coulombe.

The two cases in which CSIS sought promises that individuals would not be abused raise “a red flag,” said Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, who called the practice an end-run around international legal obligations.

“It’s not reliable. And we have been deeply concerned about the ways in which governments around the world have been increasingly relying on assurances,” Neve said.

Many western governments have resorted to the use of “diplomatic assurances” to circumvent their obligations under international law, said human-rights lawyer Paul Champ.

Courts and United Nations bodies have held — and, more tragically, experience has confirmed — that assurances are not adequate protection against torture and should not be used as an excuse for practices that might contribute to abuse, he said.

“Canada’s own experience in Afghanistan amply demonstrated that repeated assurances from the Afghan government did not stop Canadian-transferred detainees from being tortured.”

The federal policy on foreign information-sharing, ushered in by the Conservative government, has been roundly criticized by human-rights advocates and opposition politicians who say it condones torture, contrary to Canada’s UN commitments.