I ran into Abdullah Almalki at the mosque but we only exchanged greetings. When I finally talked to him in detail, I was surprised that he is pleasant and was grateful to Canadians for supporting him during his ordeal. He was arrested in Syria and tortured for two years though he had done no wrong. Almalki was 16 when his parents moved Canada in 1987. He became a citizen, an electrical engineer with top grades, married, had six children and started his own company. He also sponsored an orphan, visited Afghanistan and worked for a non-governmental organization briefly. Canadian officials questioned him in Ottawa about his contacts but they never accused, arrested or charged him with wrongdoing. Almalki's life became a nightmare in May 2002 when he visited Syria to see his ailing grandmother. The Syrian security arrested and brutally tortured him for two years. They interrogated him based on information supplied by Canadian authorities. If Almalki had acted illegally he should have been tried in Canada. Why ask a brutal regime to interrogate a visiting Canadian? In July 2004 the Syrian Supreme Court freed him saying he had done no wrong. Almalki returned to Canada but his life remains topsy-turvy. The torture displaced his jaw, broke his leg and damaged his back and neck. He has to rest frequently, lives on painkillers, cannot work, has to exercise daily and cannot concentrate while thinking. Simple tasks require a huge effort, but reading helps. In 2008 thirty Canadians of all backgrounds took a caravan from Toronto to Ottawa to highlight his case. They did so two times. Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association championed his cause.
Almalki says that while some Muslims displayed sympathy, he received no community support, perhaps out of fear. Only the London mosque joined a church in asking him to narrate his experiences. He is grateful to Canada's top lawyers for fighting his case free of charge and for always being available, including Paul Copeland who received the Order of Canada for promoting social justice and human rights. Copeland told Almalki he took up his case because it defines what kind of country we are and the future of Canada. Another lawyer who had taken a similar case free of charge said that while today Muslims and Arabs are being targeted, tomorrow it might be Jews. Associate Chief Justice of Ontario Dennis O'Connor, who led a Commission of Inquiry, castigated the role of Canadian authorities in the Maher Arar case even though “there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada.” The government apologized to Arar and compensated him. Arar was tortured in Syria. O'Connor and the United Nations Human Rights Committee recommended that the cases of Almalki, Ahmad Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin be investigated. Elmaati and Nureddin, also Canadian citizens, were arrested and tortured in Syria and/or Egypt on the basis of information Canada provided though they were never charged in Canada with wrongdoing. The government conducted a secret inquiry headed by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci. Its report, published in October 2008, said that Almalki had been tortured in Syria because Canadian officials indirectly provided words that were “inflammatory, inaccurate and lacking investigative foundation.” The O'Connor enquiry had revealed that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) sent questions to the Syrian military to ask Almalki despite knowing the high risk of torture. Almalki obtained documents under the Federal Access to Information legislation that revealed that RCMP investigators found nothing against him. Even so, RCMP told Syria that Almalki constituted an “imminent threat” to Canada and was linked to Al-Qaeda. Almalki, Elmaati and Nureddin have sued the government for its role in their arrest and torture. In 2009 the Canadian Parliament asked the government to apologize to the three, compensate them and correct the misinformation its agencies had spread. The UN committee made a similar statement. Canada has ignored the UN committee's call and that of the Parliament. Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada's secretary general, said that “at every turn since then, what we have seen is defiant insistence on the part of Canada that they will do no such thing. All we have seen over the past year is further obstruction and unwillingness on the part of the government in various court appearances and court applications - refusing to hand over documents and battling every motion and application up and down the court system in as protracted and drawn-out manner as possible.” Almalki states that the government has made no effort to atone for the injustice and has been providing documents to the courts very slowly. The cases of Almalki, Elmaati and Nureddin are before the Ontario Superior Court but the Federal Court has to decide which documents should be disclosed out of concern for public security. A judge has ordered the government to produce the documents by September 2014 at the latest. Don't count on this deadline being met. Justice in these cases is crawling at a snail's pace.
— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge.
