Harper Covers Up Torture

The Harper Government was forced to accept the Arar inquiry, and now that they called the Air India inquiry they realize that public inquiries about their pals in CSIS and the RCMP can lead to political embarrassment. Of course the illegal detention and torture of Canadian citizens with the complicity of the Canadian State is the real embarrassment.

Evidence at the inquiry is being heard primarily in-camera without lawyers for the three men present.

Lawyers for the government argued that only they should be present for most of the inquiry because it is only government officials whose actions are at issue.

So despite calls for a public inquiry Harper denies our right to know, he likes the idea of a Star Chamber it is his Executive prerogative after all. Clear, Transparent and Accountable to nobody but himself.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he will not impose new public-disclosure rules on an inquiry that's examining the role Canadian security agencies played in the overseas detention, interrogation and alleged torture of three Arab-Canadian men.

Harper told reporters Friday the internal inquiry, headed by retired Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, already has a mandate that allows him to balance the need for national security and public confidence.

"Justice Iacobucci has all the power necessary to decide whether something should be held in private or whether it can be held in public," he said. "The government has given him that mandate; the government isn't going to interfere in how he conducts the inquiry."

Iacobucci has not taken any evidence in public or released any documents since ruling in late May the inquiry will be held largely in secret.

That has left the three Canadian citizens at the heart of the inquiry, Abudllah Almalki, Ahmad El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, deeply frustrated by their inability to participate in it.

"All I want is a fair and open process that I can be a part of, that I can help with, so that all Canadians can learn what happened," said Nureddin, who was detained for 34 days in Syria.

Nureddin says he was repeatedly tortured while being interrogated with questions that he had earlier been asked by security officials in Canada.

Almalki, an Ottawa engineer, contends he was arrested in Syria and tortured because of an incompetent CSIS and RCMP investigation that wrongly identified him as a high level al-Qaida member.

The Arar Inquiry has already revealed the RCMP sent questions for Almalki to Syrian Military Intelligence.

And it adds to Canadians disillusionment with the Justice system, which plays into the Conservatives Law and Order program.

- A recently-released government poll shows Canadians believe the rights of an accused person in the justice system trump those of the people they've committed crimes against.

SEE:

No Fly List

Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

Because They Ain't White

Paranoia and the Security State

State Security Is A Secure State

Free Kadhar

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Arar, RCMP, CSIS, Syria, Torture, Rendition, Ahmad, El, Maati, Abdullah, Almalki, , Muayyed, Nureddin, torture, CIA, ICC, Hague, Day, Harper, Conservatives, Public, Security, Zaccardelli, Government, politics,

Really Corrupt Mounted Police

Gee it's hard to be a law and order government when the official state police force is riddled with corruption, cronyism and fraud.

Those who uphold the law once again act as if they are above the law.

Which suits the Harpocrites just fine since they are acting the same way.

a parliamentary committee reviews allegations of pension-fund fraud, cronyism, and three years of expense reports of former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli that were either swapped out or disappeared by his underlings, his successor, Bev Busson retires today. The planned departure comes only hours after the report of lawyer and Bay Street minence grise David Brown delivered a report on the force's corruption to Public Safety minister Stockwell Day. The RCMP, Mr. Brown declared, is "horribly broken."

Like other political police forces; the FBI and KGB for instance the RCMP have maintained their traditional para-military structure through political blackmail.

"I've worked with Liberals and Tories, and nobody wants to tangle with the RCMP," said Shirley Heafey, the former chair of the force's commission of public complaints.

"They have a lot of information on a lot of people ... It causes a chill. They have long memories in the RCMP."

And so do we on the left. We remember their infiltration of the left, their penchant for protecting strikebreakers and shooting strikers, their attack on the On to Ottawa Trekkers, their role in the Liberals attempt to discredit their opponents in particular the Quebec nationalists, their systemic refusal to deal with members of the force who abuse natives and prisoners, their role in the Arar affair and the Air India debacle, the list could go on and on.

After all the RCMP Motto is Maintain the Right.

The solution to the problem of the RCMP is three fold; implementation of the recommendations of thirty year old Macdonald Commission including; a non RCMP Commissioner, civilian control and oversight and allowing the rank and file to unionize.

Others call on Ottawa to break up the RCMP's mandate, which they believe is unwieldy. While it has many federal responsibilities whose powers range from protecting the borders against drug-smuggling, enforcing stock markets against fraud and investigating politicians, the RCMP's bread-and-butter is the contracts it has with provincial and municipal governments.

These contractual arrangements harken back to the RCMP's roots as a guns-for-hire protection and enforcement group, said Paul Palango, investigative reporter and author of The Last Guardians, a book on problems within the RCMP, calling them essentially a paramilitary force working at the behest of their hosts.

The force, he said, has turned into a hybrid organization that is both a business and a national institution.

Articles referenced;

RCMP Terror

New Math

Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

More Foreign Affairs Incompetency

Statist Anti-Terrorism Act

Paranoia and the Security State

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Giuliano Zaccardelli, Zaccardelli, , RCMP, Resigns, Arar, Commisioner, Harper, Government, lawandorder, Conservatives, Parliament, MPs, Liberals,

Air India and the Conservatives

The Air India tragedy lays at the feet of our last Conservative government under then PM Brian Mulroney. A not unimportant political fact.

It was then covered up by the Liberals, whom were indebted to the RCMP for being the political guard dogs of the State; burning barns in Quebec, deporting Leonard Peltier, etc. etc.

And while the gnu Conservative government put in place the public inquiry, they had no choice after Bob Rae's report to the Liberal government on their screw up. And like their Liberal predecessors they continue to cover up for the RCMP.

But it was the Conservative government of the day that screwed up. Chickens, home, roost.

From day one the Air India bombing was seen as an Indian affair, not a Canadian one. The racism that led to this tragedy and its cover up is now finally seeing the light of day.

The fact Mulroney first called Gandhi to express condolences on the loss of life on the plane when most of the passengers were Canadians has long been criticised.

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RCYA

Further proof that RCMP Commissioner 'Cover Yer Ass' Zaccardelli was an incompetent administrator who has a penchant for perjury.....as if we needed anymore proof....

Former RCMP commission Giuliano Zaccardelli told the Commons justice committee in 2004 that the forensic lab services matched the best in the world, that it had no backlog and that all cases involving violent crimes were given priority and that its clients — police forces and prosecutors were satisfied.

"Our audit found many of these claims to be incorrect," Fraser stated, adding that the most of the same problems found in the audit were raised in 1990 and 2000. "It is disappointing to find them still unresolved," she told reporters.

The auditor general said the fact is that for 99 per cent of its cases it is unable to meet its own turnaround target of 30 days, partly due to its backlog of DNA requests, which on average take 114 days to complete in 2005-06. However, when pressed, it can turn around urgent service request in 15 days, but this only happens in about one per cent of the cases.

Former RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli told a Parliamentary committee in 2004 that there was no backlog at his force's forensic services and that DNA analysis for major cases was completed within 15 days.

But a report released yesterday by Auditor-General Sheila Fraser says there is a backlog, it is growing, and fewer than one per cent of DNA samples sent to the RCMP Forensic Laboratory Services are processed in less than two weeks.

The rest, including homicides and sexual assaults languished in the lab for an average of 114 days in 2005-06, Ms. Fraser said in her report released Tuesday.

That was actually an increase of nearly three weeks over 2003-04 when additional spending and staff were directed at the labs because the force was being criticized for long turnover times and backlogs.

Ms. Fraser refused to speculate on the reasons for Mr. Zaccadelli's misleading testimony when she spoke to reporters at a news conference yesterday.

“I think you have to ask the people who made those statements. I have no explanation for that,” she said.

The suggestion that the former commissioner may have misled politicians comes after he resigned for providing false information to the government about Maher Arar who was wrongly accused of having terrorist ties. It also comes as Parliament is trying to get to the bottom of mishandling of the RCMP pension.

See:

Keystone Kops and Air India

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