By Alison@Creekside

A leaked 2004 CSIS report from LaPresse on Thursday purports to be a summary of a conversation between Abousfian Abdelrazik and Adil Charkaoui  in 2000 in which they plotted to blow up an airplane enroute between Montreal and France. It has already been enthusiastically repeated across our national press:

CBC: CSIS file reveals plot to bomb plane: La Presse

Gosh, CBC, your previous nice pix of Abdelrazik and Charkaoui are now replaced by scary ones.

G&M: Abdelrazik and Charkaoui plotted plane bomb: report

AFP:  Two Canada terror suspects plotted France attack: report

etc. … etc. …

Never mind that this “news” was already reported nearly two years ago after a federal court judge annulled Charkaoui’s security certificate because government lawyers refused the judge’s order to reveal their wiretap evidence, citing “security concerns.”

About now you are probably wondering what kinds of ”security concerns” trump giving evidence about someone you allege was plotting to blow up a plane.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney:

“I read the protected confidential dossiers on such individuals, and I can tell you that, without commenting on any one individual, some of this intelligence makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” he said. “I just think people should be patient and thoughtful and give the government and its agencies the benefit of the doubt.”

The re-leak has nonetheless been greeted with skepticism by Boris, Dr. Dawg, Pogge, Sixth Estate and no doubt many others because we all remember previous security leaks from government officials who are more than happy to anonymously rejig conveniently-timed select bits of complete bullshit to a cooperative media.

Let’s review just the anonymous bullshit security leaks about Maher Arar for instance, for which no public officials were ever called to account and who are presumably still happily at it.

In 2002, while Arar was being tortured in Syria, an anonymous official source linked Arar to “a suspected member of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network.” That suspected member was Abdullah Almalki — later cleared by the Iacobucci inquiry.

Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar:

CanWest bureau chief Robert Fife, July 24, 2003: “Terror threats in Ottawa: Two kinds of fear: Report says

Syrian intelligence helped U.S. to foil al-Qaeda plot on target in Ottawa : One official would only tell CanWest News Service that Mr. Arar, a 36-year-old Ottawa engineer, is a “very bad guy” who apparently received military training at an Al-Qaeda base. “

As noted by Justice O’Connor in the report: “The apparent purpose behind this leak is not attractive: to attempt to influence public opinion against Mr. Arar at a time when his release from imprisonment in Syria was being sought by the government of Canada.”

Coincidentally the sudden re-issuing of this “new” leak about blowing up planes happens to coincide with Abdelrazik’s attempt to get his name off the UN 1267 terror list this month.

To continue:

G&M, Oct 10, 2003: Unnamed Canadian government sources said that Mr. Arar had been “roughed up,” but not tortured, while in detention in Syria

CTV, Oct. 23, 2003: “Senior government officials in various departments” said that Mr. Arar had provided information to the Syrians about al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and cells operating in Canada.

Juliet O’Neill, Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 2003 : “Canada’s dossier on Maher Arar: The existence of a group of Ottawa men with alleged ties to al-Qaeda is at the root of why the government opposes an inquiry into the case.”

Fife: Dec. 30, 2003 : “US, Canada ’100% sure’ Arar trained with al-Qaeda”: “A senior Canadian intelligence source said the United States had an extensive dossier on Mr. Arar and that ‘if the Americans were ever to declassify the stuff, there would be some hair standing on end.’”

Toronto Star: Learning from media mistakes in Arar case, May 2009:

“Unnamed officials also told Craig Oliver at CTV News that Arar was only released because he had given information to the Syrians about Al Qaeda and about other Canadians suspected of terrorism activities. Oliver later explained that he felt the story was credible because his sources were senior officials in two different government departments. Nonetheless, years after the Arar inquiry’s report, he apologized to Arar in person for running the story. He also told him of an offer he had turned down – a photograph of Arar training in a camp in Afghanistan. As he describes: ‘The source wanted me to use the information without showing me the photograph. That was a very solid source . . . This experience has made me more skeptical . . . I knew these people very well.’”

So you’ll have to forgive the rest of us if we also share Craig Oliver’s reluctance to be conned into accepting any more conveniently-timed leaks and smears from anonymous security officials who, for all we know, are the same ones who previously set out to turn public opinion against Arar even as they destroyed his life for reasons they have yet to account for.

The publication ban on Project Samosa, the RCMP’s latest salvo in the war on terror, has the media scrambling to get unnamed sources and security experts to augment and substitute for accounts of court proceedings. By a happy coincidence for war on terror fans, this allows for far more pants-pissingly terrorfying conjecture than mere straight news would allow.

So far, “sources” have told one security expert, an ex-RCMP and CSIS operative quoted at CTV, that the accused:

1) “would have targeted the Parliament buildings and Montreal’s public transit system with bombs”
2) “that the ringleader went to Afghanistan and to Pakistan to receive training”
3) “some of their suspected accomplices could be in Iran or in Dubai”
4) “were assembling components for one or more bombs and had raised money for al Qaeda and the Taliban”
5) “the ringleader was about to take a trip abroad, maybe to deliver the money himself”

This last is the reported reason for the arrests. After a year of watching them:

“Police say a terror attack was likely still months away when they pounced on the plot, but they moved because they feared the men were about to start sending money to other terrorists in Afghanistan.”

Last I heard, “terrorists” in Afghanistan were already rolling in US tax dollars and drug money, but whatever.

A year ago the Star ran an excellent piece on the media’s relationship with their “sources” in the Arar case when he was the terrorist du jour: Learning from media mistakes in Arar case

Canadian Press journalist Stephen Thorne quoted an official source who linked Arar to “a suspected member of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network.”

Robert Fife, CanWest’s Ottawa bureau chief, “cited an anonymous official who described Arar as a ‘very bad guy’ who had received training at an Al Qaeda base and that intelligence received from Syria had helped the CIA avert an attack on the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.”

Craig Oliver at CTV News was “offered a photograph of Arar training in a camp in Afghanistan” Oliver: “The source wanted me to use the information without showing me the photograph. That was a very solid source . . . This experience has made me more skeptical . . . I knew these people very well.”

Ottawa Citizen‘s Juliet O’Neill was fed a story headlined “Canada’s dossier on Maher Arar: The existence of a group of Ottawa men with alleged ties to Al Qaeda is at the root of why the government opposes an inquiry into the case.”

Even after Arar’s return to Canada, “Robert Fife was once more the vehicle that Canadian and U.S. intelligence officials used to inform the public that they were ’100 per cent sure’ that Arar trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan.”

Some of these reporters have since stated they were used and have apologised to Arar; some have not. The point is they were all used to disseminate false information from anonymous government and police sources to the public. Something to bear in mind when “sources” are once again where we will be getting most of our information on this newest batch of alleged terrorists, given it will likely be months if not years before they go to trial.

Below: Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights Watch is interviewed as she leaves the courtroom on Day 1 of Obama’s first big pretrial for a military commission into the possible terrorist actions of a 14-year old. Terrible sound, I know, but well worth it for her explanation of how after Khadr has been tortured to confess at Bagram, the “clean team” comes in and tries to elicit the same “confessions” under friendlier conditions so that the new clean confessions will be admissible in court.

 
A word about Khadr’s confessions under torture. According to Eviatar, FBI agent Robert Fuller

elicited from Khadr the identification of another Canadian, Maher Arar, who Khadr during interviews by Fuller claimed was training with al Qaeda operatives at a training camp at a time that, it later turned out, Arar was actually at home in Canada.

Shortly after Fuller reported the identification of Arar to the government, Arar was apprehended at JFK airport and rendered to Syria for interrogation there.

FBI agent Fuller also got Khadr to confess to throwing a grenade at US forces.

Well so much for confessions elicited via sleep deprivation, denial of pain medication, stress positions, being forced to urinate on himself and being used as a human mop, being terrorized by barking dogs, and being threatened with rape and torture. Khadr’s defence team has only been allowed to interview three of Khadr’s 30 interrogators at Bagram and Gitmo, two of whom admit the 15-year old Khadr was threatened with rape.

In the vid above Eviatar also mentions no one knowing what the rules are. This is because Secretary of Defense Robert Gates only signed off on and issued the 2009 Manual for the Military Commissions Act on Wednesday night, 12 hours before the pretrial began, meaning that no one involved had time to read it beforehand and consequently no one knew what the rules were. After a four hour adjournment to read it, now they can’t agree on whether or not the US Constitution applies.

Mike Berrigan, deputy chief defense council : “We don’t know what the law is.”

You don’t really have one, sir. That’s why it’s called a kangaroo court — it leaps over the law to a foregone conclusion. That’s the whole point.

Your government announced on Friday that it needs more powers to combat terrorism.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson: “These provisions are necessary to protect our country from the threat of terrorism.”

A redo of the panicky, now-defunct Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, the new Combating Terrorism Act includes preventive arrest and forcing people to testify at secret hearings about terrorist acts that might happen in the future, and if you don’t like it you can go to jail for up to a year with a judge’s option to extend.

There are more safeguards included this time round — you can have a lawyer! at any time! — which will only allow the Libs to go along with it so as not to be painted as soft on terrorism. Mark Holland, the Liberal critic for Public Safety and National Security, is already looking to cave.

The argument in favour of anti-terrorism legislation is that criminal law only deals with crimes already committed. What to do about those who feel that crimes perpetrated by the state against their people require a response like blowing things up?

The argument against it is . . . well, let’s look at how they’re doing with the laws they’ve already got. From the April 1st Ottawa Citizen:

“The federal government case against Ottawa terror suspect Mohamed Harkat appears to have suffered a significant blow Wednesday when a document was introduced in court showing that Abu Zubaydah, once considered a master terrorist and 9/11 mastermind, actually had nothing to do with the attacks.

“Even more surprising, the document, which quotes U.S court filings declassified last week, shows that Zubaydah, once believed to be one of the top leaders in al-Qaeda, was not even a member of the terrorist group.”

The unfortunate Abu Zubaydah got waterboarded 83 times in the US, coughed up Harkat’s name, and the Canadian government obligingly held Harkat for 3 1/2 years.

A clue about the reliability of Abu Zubaydah’s “testimony” might have been found in his confession to terrorist acts committed after his imprisonment, but sadly, no, it wasn’t.

Abdelrazik? “Closely associated” with the same hapless Abu Zubaydah.

Result? Abdelrazik was tortured, then exiled in Sudan for six years. He’s still on the UN’s 1267 terror list, and the Canadian government has frozen his bank account and he can’t work.

Help him get off that list? Blow me, said Minister of Public Security Peter Van Loan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon.

Maher Arar — the first inkling for many of us that something had gone terribly wrong.
Adil Charkaoui — in custody 21 months, now free.
Hassan Almrei — in custody for eight years, now free.
Mahmoud Jaballah — in custody for six years, now free.
Mohammad Mahjoub — in custody for seven years, freed, requested return to jail in 2009 to protest bail conditions worse than jail.
Benamar Benatta – rendered to US for 5 years
Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin

And then there’s the ever-expanded definition of what constitutes terrorism.

According to Jason Kenney’s “infandous” Mr. Velshi, George Galloway’s proposed visit to Canada last year to give a speech entitled “Resisting war from Gaza to Kandahar” was sufficient for him to brand a sitting British MP on tour in the US “a terrorist supporter.”

Nothing about these vile clowns inspires any confidence in their wanting to accrue more secretive powers to their already abused arsenal of abominations.