Canada Charges Syrian Officer with Torture in Rendition Case

[jimmy olsen]

Good

https://theintercept.com/2015/09/01/charges-filed-case-rendition-torture-maher-arar/

Canada Charges Syrian Officer with Torture in Rendition Case — Despite U.S.

SilenceMurtaza Hussain

Sep. 2 2015, 7:58 a.m

Canada has charged a Syrian intelligence officer with torturing Maher Arar, the Canadian whose 2002 rendition to Syria by U.S. authorities became a cause célèbre.

The criminal charge against Col. George Salloum is reportedly the first of its kind in Canada and marks a formal acknowledgment that Arar was tortured after the U.S. handed him over on suspicion of terrorist links. An earlier official Canadian inquiry declared Arar innocent of any such links.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who brought the charge against Salloum, are calling for him to be extradited to Canada. Salloum allegedly oversaw Arar's torture in Syria's notorious Sednaya prison.

Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, who has acted as the family's public representative, praised the move in an interview, calling the charges "a big step in the right direction... We need to see more accountability happening in Canada, in the U.S., in Jordan and in Syria. The ones who tortured and the ones who helped these horrible acts to happen should face justice."

"My husband and my family suffered tremendously all these years," she added. "Extraordinary rendition is a horrible tool that has been used by the U.S. government in an attempt to make torture legal and acceptable."

On September 26, 2002, as Arar prepared to board a connecting flight at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, on his way home to Montreal from a family vacation in Tunisia, Arar was detained by U.S. authorities and taken in for questioning. Arar would be held for almost two weeks in the U.S. without charge before being flown to Jordan and handed over to authorities there. He was then turned over to Syria.

Arar was later revealed to have been falsely branded as an Al Qaeda member. His ordeal became perhaps the best-known example of "extraordinary rendition," a shadowy U.S. program in which suspected terrorists are extradited from one foreign country to another in order to be interrogated and prosecuted. In recognition of Arar's suffering, the Canadian government in 2007 apologized and gave him a $10 million settlement.

The U.S. government has refused to take any similar measures, and Canadian authorities today left unaddressed the role that top U.S. officials are believed to have played in orchestrating Arar's rendition. In 2004, lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights brought a lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, and other high-ranking officials for conspiring to send Arar to Syria to be tortured. Ashcroft was accused of being "responsible for making the decision to remove Mr. Arar to Jordan and Syria," and Mueller was accused of having "removed Mr. Arar to Syria"; each was sued in both their official and individual capacities.  The case was dismissed in 2006, and again in 2008, after the government invoked the state secrets privilege to claim potential adverse implications to national security if details of Arar's rendition and torture were to be revealed. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled against hearing his appeal, and his case has languished ever since.

Jamil Dakwar of the ACLU says that more needs to be done to address the role of U.S. government officials in Arar's torture. "As part of the process of providing Mr. Arar his right to truth, the U.S. government should, as a matter of obligation, open an investigation into the responsibility of U.S. officials in his mistreatment," Dakwar said. "This episode has never been credibly or independently investigated in the United States. If there is evidence of lawbreaking, including complicity in torture, the individuals responsible need to be held criminally responsible, and there needs to be an apology and reparations provided to the victim."

[Eddie Teach]

Good

I don't see anything that suggests Canada should have jurisdiction in this matter.

[DontSayBanana]

I don't see anything that suggests Canada should have jurisdiction in this matter.

If I follow the logic correctly, traditional jurisprudence in the international zone of airports (where the rendition presumably happened) or in the air falls to the citizen's home jurisdiction, not the hosting country.  Since the chain of events including his torture was initiated in the international zone, Canada gets jurisdiction over the incident unless the US, Jordan, or Syria can come up with a compelling reason otherwise.  That's if I follow this correctly (lawtalkers?).

[crazy canuck]

No, the jurisdictional question is very simple.  Under Canadian law it is illegal to torture a Canadian whether or not the act occurs on foreign soil.  The tricky part is getting Syria to agree to extradite if he is in Syria or finding him if he has fled.  This is perhaps more important as a symbolic gesture. 

[Valmy]

Another great moment bequeathed to us by the George W Bush administration.

[DontSayBanana]

No, the jurisdictional question is very simple.  Under Canadian law it is illegal to torture a Canadian whether or not the act occurs on foreign soil.  The tricky part is getting Syria to agree to extradite if he is in Syria or finding him if he has fled.  This is perhaps more important as a symbolic gesture.

Ah, I was wondering if that was the case.  Not even like there's much of a Syrian government to lean on to extradite the colonel at the moment, anyway.

[Eddie Teach]

No, the jurisdictional question is very simple.  Under Canadian law it is illegal to torture a Canadian whether or not the act occurs on foreign soil.  The tricky part is getting Syria to agree to extradite if he is in Syria or finding him if he has fled.  This is perhaps more important as a symbolic gesture.

And under Syrian law there would almost certainly be no case for extradition.

People who travel to other countries are putting themselves in the protection of those countries' legal systems.

I do find it interesting they're going after the Syrian agent who interrogated/tortured the man and not the American agents who kidnapped him.

[Valmy]

I do find it interesting they're going after the Syrian agent who interrogated/tortured the man and not the American agents who kidnapped him.

They might as well go after Dubya if they are going to do that.

[crazy canuck]

No, the jurisdictional question is very simple.  Under Canadian law it is illegal to torture a Canadian whether or not the act occurs on foreign soil.  The tricky part is getting Syria to agree to extradite if he is in Syria or finding him if he has fled.  This is perhaps more important as a symbolic gesture.

And under Syrian law there would almost certainly be no case for extradition.

People who travel to other countries are putting themselves in the protection of those countries' legal systems.

I do find it interesting they're going after the Syrian agent who interrogated/tortured the man and not the American agents who kidnapped him.

First, whether or not the Syrians agree to extradite is a separate question from whether a Canadian court would have jurisdiction.  For example if he was arrested in Canada a Canadian court would certainly take jurisdiction.

Second the US government and others were sued.  Canada settled and apologized.  The US invoked a kind of sovereign immunity/ state secrets argument and were successful in the US courts with that .

[Martinus]

No, the jurisdictional question is very simple.  Under Canadian law it is illegal to torture a Canadian whether or not the act occurs on foreign soil.  The tricky part is getting Syria to agree to extradite if he is in Syria or finding him if he has fled.  This is perhaps more important as a symbolic gesture.

And under Syrian law there would almost certainly be no case for extradition.

People who travel to other countries are putting themselves in the protection of those countries' legal systems.

I do find it interesting they're going after the Syrian agent who interrogated/tortured the man and not the American agents who kidnapped him.

I think countries that do not claim jurisdiction for crimes committed against their own citizens overseas (which I infer from your posts include the US) are quite rare. Most countries claim jurisdiction in such cases but apply it in a subsidiary manner - i.e. only if the country where the crime was actually committed does not prosecute.

A more interesting question is whether there are instances of such jurisdiction being claimed where the act itself was not a crime in the country where it was committed - I'd imagine it is unusual (although not entirely inconceivable for some serious crimes which may not be crimes in the country where they are committed - such as rape committed under certain conditions). But this question does not apply here, as torture is illegal under international conventions so it would have been illegal in Syria as well.

For the same reason I believe Canada is more reluctant to prosecute US officials, as the deportation to Syria would probably have been legal under US law, so Canada would actually have to prove these officials being accessory to torture which would be much harder.

[Eddie Teach]

OK, OK, Canada has "jurisdiction" because their law says they do, fine. (And the US probably does the same thing.) But it's a law dictating what foreign citizens can do in their own country. I highly doubt Canada would extradite if the situation was reversed.

[Martinus]

OK, OK, Canada has "jurisdiction" because their law says they do, fine. (And the US probably does the same thing.) But it's a law dictating what foreign citizens can do in their own country. I highly doubt Canada would extradite if the situation was reversed.

Well, again, most countries do not extradite their own citizens. But if the guy was travelling abroad he could be arrested based on an international arrest warrant.

[crazy canuck]

OK, OK, Canada has "jurisdiction" because their law says they do, fine. (And the US probably does the same thing.) But it's a law dictating what foreign citizens can do in their own country. I highly doubt Canada would extradite if the situation was reversed.

Wrong again.  Torture is illegal under Canadian law.  As Marti pointed out that is the threshold question when a country decides to extradite - ie is the act illegal in the extraditing country.

Marti was also correct about why no US actors will be charged - what they did was legal under US law at the time and so the US would not extradite.

[Eddie Teach]

Wrong again.  Torture is illegal under Canadian law.

A Canadian government agent, acting in official capacity on Canadian soil, gets charged with torture by some third world kangaroo court and you just obligingly send him on? Right...

[viper37]

Wrong again.  Torture is illegal under Canadian law.

A Canadian government agent, acting in official capacity on Canadian soil, gets charged with torture by some third world kangaroo court and you just obligingly send him on? Right...

If there is an extradition tready with this country, the case will be heard in a tribunal, if the agent opposes its extradition, the foreign government will present its arguments, then the judge will rule on the merit.
It happenned with Vito Rizzuto, head of Montreal's sicilian mafia, for a murder committed in New York.  Other mafiosi fought against their extradition toward Italy too.
So it's not just "we hand him over", there's a due process for this.
If there's no extradition treaty, then I don't know how it works.