Terror torture inquiry to be mostly private, says judge

[struggle4progress]

Source: Canadian Press

March 21, 2007

OTTAWA (CP) - Former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci is promising to dig into the roles played by the RCMP and CSIS in the arrest and torture abroad of three Canadians accused of consorting with terrorists at home ...

In an opening statement Wednesday, Iacobucci acknowledged his work will "generally" be done behind closed doors under the terms of reference laid out for him by the Conservative government ...

At issue are the ordeals of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, all Canadian citizens of Muslim extraction who adamantly deny any terrorist links. They say their detention and mistreatment in Syria and Egypt resulted from misleading information supplied to those countries by Canadian police and security officers ...

Their stories bear striking similarities to that of Maher Arar, who was arrested by U.S. authorities in 2002 and deported to face torture in Syria. Arar's name was cleared by another inquiry that concluded he was the victim of misinformation supplied by the RCMP.

Read more: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/2007/03/21/3797949-cp.html