Frank Iacobucci

“ One of the CSIS officials who had travelled to Syria and met with the SyMI was responsible for evaluating the information that had been provided to the delegation (including the information obtained from the questioning of Mr. Almalki) . He had no prior experience in determining if information might be the product of mistreatment, and he did not specifically turn his mind to the possibility of torture or interrogation methods when evaluating the information. ”

“ On October 31, 2001, Inspector Michel Cabana, the Officer in Charge of Project A-O Canada, authorized a request to the United States Customs Service to issue TECS checks and lookouts on Mr. Almalki and several of his family members. Though Project A-O Canada was aware that Mr. Almalki was already a subject of a TECS lookout, it made this request so that it would be notified of any cross-border activity. The request described Mr. Almalki and his family members as “Islamic extremist individuals suspected of being linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist movement”. ”

“ Almalki’s case until he personally intervened in November 2003. 23 According to the transcript of the November 6 meeting, Safa Almalki explained Syrian “intelligence files” as follows: the Syrian government keeps an intelligence file on every Syrian. Syrians in Canada can inquire about their intelligence files at the Syrian Embassy in Canada. Often Syrian-Canadians will check their intelligence file before deciding whether to travel back to Syria. The Syrian Embassy may advise a person not to travel back to Syria or to travel at his/her own risk. ”

“ In his report on the meeting and subsequent discussions of December 4, 2003, which was sent to Konrad Sigurdson and others in DFAIT, Ambassador Davis suggested that DFAIT consider taking steps to manage public reaction to the case of Mr. Almalki and others so as to avoid undermining DFAIT’s efforts to secure Syria’s cooperation. The concern was that an unbalanced portrayal of Mr. Almalki’s case in the media, including a persistent focus on Syria’s human rights reputation, might further complicate cooperation in the resolution of this case and future cases. ”

“ He said that he would expect that a person being abused would give up a lot of information, and that the reporting would be more detailed than what the Service had received from the Syrians. In addition, as noted above, he said that the Service had information suggesting that Mr. Almalki was in good health and not being mistreated. Finally, as discussed above at paragraph 65, the CSIS official was aware that a European intelligence agency had previously advised CSIS that the SyMI does not resort to torture or physical abuse during questioning. ”

“ One CSIS official was asked how he reconciled the information suggesting that Mr. Almalki was in good health with Mr. Elmaati’s torture allegations. The official said that he was reluctant to draw a direct correlation between the treatment of one person and another because people can be treated differently in similar circumstances. He also said that assessing the conditions in which Mr. Almalki and Mr. Elmaati were being held was a DFAIT function, and not something that, in view of his role, he was particularly concerned about. ”

“ Inspector Cabana said that the RCMP’s goal in sending the questions was not to get answers to those questions but to offer something to Syrian officials in the hope that they would ultimately grant the RCMP access to Mr. Almalki. 150. Though the questions were stripped down from the initial draft, Staff Sergeant Callaghan thought that that they were still pretty strong in themselves. He stated that someone reading the questions might think that, if Mr. Almalki was possibly associated with the people listed in the questions, “maybe the
Canadians have something here.” ”

“ Mr. Almalki went to a Syrian immigration office to make arrangements to leave Syria. According to Mr. Almalki, when he asked the immigration officials to transfer his entry visa from his old passport to his new passport they gave him an exit visa instead and then sent him to the head of immigration, who signed the exit visa. Mr. Almalki immediately booked a flight to Vienna and departed the same day. ”

“ Though Canadian officials did not learn of Mr. Almalki’s allegation until November 2003, they were generally aware that Syria had a poor human rights reputation. They were also aware that another Canadian citizen, Mr. Elmaati, had made a similar allegation. In August 2002, while in detention in Egypt, Mr. Elmaati told DFAIT consular officials that he was tortured while in Syrian detention. ”

“ Almalki failed. Moreover, both Ambassador Pillarella and the RCMP liaison officer in Rome advised the RCMP that the Syrian authorities would likely not agree to permit a police agency to interview Mr. Almalki in Syria. 117. After several failed attempts to set up an interview in Syria, the RCMP began to consider sending questions to Syria to be posed to Mr. Almalki by Syrian officials. Aware that Syria might expect something in exchange for questioning Mr. Almalki on its behalf, the RCMP also started to make plans to share with Syria information from the Project A-O Canada investigation. ”

“ Almalki. Canadian officials’ interest in Mr. Almalki
CSIS 2. Starting in the early 1990s, CSIS was actively investigating potential security threats posed by Canada-based supporters of Sunni Islamic extremism, al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. In the late 1990s, in the normal course of this investigation, CSIS learned that Abdullah Almalki might have some knowledge of the threat to Canada and Canadian interests abroad. The Service had concerns arising out of information that linked Mr. Almalki to Islamic extremists. ”

“ Almalki. Neither DFAIT nor the RCMP received any response from the SyMI to the questions or to the RCMP’s offer to share investigative material. Ambassador Pillarella attributed this to a number of factors, including the deterioration in relations between Canadian officials and the SyMI, possibly as a result of pressures to secure the release of Mr. Arar. He believed that the Syrians were “really annoyed with Canada because [Canada was] causing problems for them.” 165. Ambassador Pillarella also attributed the SyMI’s failure to respond to its aversion to working with a police organization. ”

“ Inspector Cabana said he thought that an FBI criminal investigation would allow the RCMP to get access to more information for its own investigation, and in a format that would be admissible in court. ”

“ In November 2002, a CSIS delegation travelled to Syria to meet with officials from the Syrian Military Intelligence (“SyMI”) . The trip was arranged in response to an invitation from the SyMI that had been communicated to Ambassador Pillarella at a November 3, 2002 meeting. At that meeting, General Khalil told Ambassador Pillarella that he would agree to allow a Canadian intelligence official to visit Damascus to review the information provided by Mr. Arar. With respect to Mr. Almalki, Ambassador Pillarella observed that General Khalil seemed “disposed to accept” that Mr. ”

“ Almalki in a professional manner. He said that it was his understanding that Canadian citizens detained in Syria were less likely to be mistreated than individuals of other nationalities, though he acknowledged that a dual Syrian-Canadian citizen would likely not be treated as well as a person with Canadian citizenship only. 155. Staff Sergeant Fiorido did not make any independent inquiries—of DFAIT for example—regarding how Mr. Almalki might be interrogated ”

“ He responded that he did not know what to make of the information. The official was also asked whether he was aware of the view that mistreatment, where it occurs during incarceration, generally occurs early in the period of incarceration. He responded that he would not know what happens to individuals at different periods of their detention. DFAIT’s view
69. DFAIT officials from the Consular Affairs Bureau and DFAIT’s Security and Intelligence Bureau (DFAIT ISD) generally testified before the Arar Inquiry to having some understanding that Syria had a poor human rights reputation. ”

“ Mr. McTeague emphasized that he had a mandate from and reported directly to then Prime Minister Paul Martin, who had told him to do what he thought was the right thing. With respect to apparent concerns about Canada’s security relationship with key allies, Mr. McTeague said that he was not an expert in security, but could not see how his visiting Syria would pose a problem. He said that his mission was to improve damaged relations between Canada and Syria. 201. At the end of February 2004, in an email to Mr. ”

“ Mr. Saunders recalled telling the RCMP that Syria has a reputation for being fairly brutal with prisoners, that Syria would probably not interrogate Mr. Almalki the same way the RCMP would, and that he thought sending questions was a bad idea. He said that Mr. Gould agreed with his view. Mr. Gould testified at the Arar Inquiry that, while he recalled the discussion about the RCMP sharing information with the Syrians and sending questions for Mr. Almalki, he could not recall whether DFAIT stated a position about the appropriateness of sending questions. Mr. ”

“ On the instructions of Inspector Cabana, officials seized the computer, and Inspector Cabana obtained a warrant to copy the hard drive. In early January 2002, a U.S. agency requested a copy of the data from the hard drive and the RCMP’s analysis of that data. While the data and analysis were not shared with the U.S. agency at that time, the data from the analysis of the hard drive was uploaded to the RCMP Supertext database and included on the CDs that were provided to U.S. agencies in April 2002 (as discussed below) . Events during Mr. Almalki’s stay in Malaysia
24. Mr. ”

“ In an internal memorandum dated October 10, 2002, Mr. Livermore updated one of the Assistant Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs on the status of the RCMP’s initiative to send questions. He stated that both ISI and the Embassy had pointed out to the RCMP that such questioning might involve torture, but that the RCMP had nonetheless decided to proceed. October 21 discussion between Inspector Cabana and Mr. Gould 134. In late October 2002, Inspector Cabana spoke with Mr. ”

“ Almalki that it was prepared to share with Syrian authorities. In his notes on the conversation, Mr. Gould wrote that “ [t] he RCMP has generated a great deal of information about al-Malki and they are prepared to share this information with Syrian authorities is [sic] they wish to send someone to Ottawa (this offer may already have been passed to the Syrians by the RCMP LO) .” 135. Ambassador Pillarella met with General Khalil the following day (October 22, 2002) . The report of this meeting suggests that the focus of the meeting was Mr. ”

“ Almalki’s possible arrest or extradition. Superintendent Clement said he had reason to believe that a representative of the foreign agency that was seeking the RCMP’s assistance with the extradition would be contacting DFAIT, most likely Scott Heatherington, the Director of DFAIT’s Foreign Intelligence Division (DFAIT ISI) . Superintendent Clement also told the Inquiry that the foreign agency’s efforts to engage the RCMP in the arrest and extradition of Mr. ”

“ He explained that because these cases fell under the authority of the Syrian security forces, they were not amenable to normal diplomatic pressures. He also said that because the Syrians considered Mr. ”