Cross-posted to the E-Group.
This story surfaced late last week while I was still on a break. Last Thursday Maher Arar, his wife Monia Mazigh, their lawyer Lorne Waldman and Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, held a press conference to accuse the Canadian government of using Tunisian police to intimidate a forthcoming witness in the Arar inquiry.
On August 3rd Mazigh's brother Mourad, a dual Canadian-Tunisian citizen who's currently living in Tunisia, was picked up by secret police in that country and interrogated for three hours. The focus of the interrogation was Maher Arar, not his own activities. Arar stated that the Tunisian police had information that could only have come from Canada. Neve was in attendance to attest to the fact that the Tunisians have a reputation for playing rough - the better to make you talk.
The decision was made to go public with this because Deputy Prime Minister Ann McLellan and Barbara McIsaac, a lawyer representing the attorney general, have both been written to twice. Neither has responded. The press didn't get a lot more out of McLellan.
Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan declined to comment directly on Mr. Arar's allegation, saying to reporters in Kelowna, B.C., that, as a matter of policy, the government will not discuss security operations.But she said Canada shares intelligence with other countries, a practice that is "absolutely key to our fight against terrorism."
Sharing intelligence is one thing, though even that is currently under scrutiny precisely because Arar himself is an example of what can happen when it's done injudiciously. We've already learned that the RCMP violated its own policies when it shared information on Arar with American authorities without the normal restrictions.
But it's a different thing altogether to encourage that a suspect be questioned behind closed doors by people who have a reputation for ignoring the rules we normally think of as governing civilized behaviour. So what interest would the Tunisians have in Arar unless that interest was prompted by a Canadian request? If our own authorities wanted to question Mourad Mazigh, why not do so back in July when he was in Canada? It's not like the investigation into Arar's activities is new. It started at least two years ago.
Arar himself spoke to the crux of the matter.
"This is becoming a pattern. In the past two years, a lot of Canadians have been interrogated abroad. So they wait for people to leave, and then they use those other guys in other countries to interrogate them. This is what's alarming about this."
That in fact is the whole point of the extraordinary renditions that the CIA is accused of performing: send the suspect to a jurisdiction that isn't quite as fussy about the methods used to extract information. Let someone else do the dirty work.
Mourad Mazigh wasn't the only one questioned in Tunisia. A week or so before the press conference, his father was also questioned.
Arar suggested the RCMP were behind the questioning. He said his wife's father was asked whether Arar had ever applied for permanent residence in Tunisia.Arar said the Mounties have speculated that he was trying to hide in Tunisia and had sought resident status.
"The RCMP have been trying to prove this for two years," he said. "It's outrageous that they would have my father-in-law visited just because they are desperate to find evidence that isn't there."
Has the RCMP not noticed that one thing Arar isn't doing is hiding?
If this was really an attempt to intimidate Arar's brother-in-law, it may have worked. Monia Mazigh told the press that her brother is "rethinking" his intention to testify.
But at least the incident has attracted the attention of the commission.
The commission of inquiry is waiting for the government to respond to Mr. Arar's charges, commission chief counsel Paul Cavalluzzo said.The commission, to date, has no evidence that witnesses are being intimidated as the result of the actions of any federal official, but if this does turn out to be true the commission will not tolerate it, Mr. Cavalluzzo said in an interview.
The longer this inquiry goes on, the more evident it becomes that it was necessary.
