The role played by CSIS - Canada's secretive anti-terrorist agency - in the arrest, imprisonment and alleged torture of Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian citizen forcibly exiled in Sudan for years, will be probed by the Security Intelligence Review Committee.
...
SIRC rejected the agency's request for a quick, exculpatory review of its handling of the Abdelrazik case, opting instead for a full investigation into the formal complaint brought by Mr. Abdelrazik.
"We hope SIRC will be able to dig out the details of CSIS conduct that we have been unable to get," Paul Champ, a lawyer for Mr. Abdelrazik said Wednesday.
All indications are that the Security Intelligence Review Committee's probe of the Abousfian Abdelrazik case has died a quiet death or, at best, languishes in limbo.
Paul Champ, Abdelrazik's lawyer, said he believes the watchdog abandoned the investigation following some initial spadework by then-committee member Dr. Arthur Porter.
"It's our understanding that the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) is not looking into that issue at all anymore," Champ said Friday.
Quelle surprise.
That would be the Dr. Arthur Porter who resigned as chair of SIRC after less than a year following a NaPo story regarding his offshore cash payment to a former Israeli arms trafficker, now acting as a lobbyist for the Russian Federation, to sell infrastructure deals to Sierra Leone, where Porter has mining interests and holds the title of "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone", would it?
One and the same. Some enterprising journalist really ought to track him down and ask him for a comment on this story. Might be interesting.