Intelligence Stupidity

Ottawa engineer Abdullah Almalki, identified by CSIS and the RCMP as a possible member of al-Qaeda experienced, as a result of that suspicion, a truly dreadful experience. His wounded innocence displayed in photographs published in the newspapers remind one of the photographs of Maher Arar on his return from his prison-torture sojourn in Syria. Mr. Almalki also suffered gruesome torture at the hands of his Syrian jailers.

And, it would appear, based on evidence being drawn from various sources, that the RCMP investigators, despite coming to the conclusion that there was no verifiable evidence to link Mr. Almalki with al-Qaeda, nor any plots to do harm to Canada as an agent with an Islamist agenda, that a wrong was done this Syrian-born Canadian family man. He was arrested in Syria in 2002 and spend 22 unfortunate months incarcerated there.

This is an experience that he will most certainly never forget. Nor will he forgive. Mr. Almalki has revealed through his lawyer, intelligence respecting a letter dated October 4, 2001, written by the RCMP to the Syrian intelligence agency which labelled him "an imminent threat", to this country's national security, linking him to al-Qaeda.

Note that date: very shortly after the al-Qaeda-driven attacks on New York's World Trade Towers, the Pentagon in Washington, a Pennsylvania flight. Note too that Mr. Almalki once worked for Ahmed Said Khadr at Human Concern International, a charity based in Ottawa to perform development work in the Muslim world. But Mr. Khadr was a senior member of al-Qaeda, a confidant of Osama bin Laden.

And Mr. Almalki's Ottawa import-export company was involved in shipping communications equipment to Pakistan. Some of the store-bought equipment exported to Pakistan had made its way to Afghanistan, and was found in the hands of the Taliban. Not surprising, given current knowledge, that Pakistan was and remains involved through its military and secret service in supporting the Afghan Taliban.

The transaction, however, had nothing to do with Mr. Almalki. He met with CSIS and explained the situation to them. The RCMP had concluded that: "It does not appear to me that there is any offence being committed at this time that would warrant an investigation by ANSIS (a branch of the RCMP's National Security Investigative Service)."

And Mr. Almalki was cleared of having committed any possible violation of Canada's export regulations. So the disaster that befell him personally does not, clearly, appear to have been warranted by anything he deliberately did, but by sloppy and inadequate police work. To claim, as Alex Neve of Amnesty International has done that an RCMP characterization of Mr. Almalki was "derogatory and racist. It suggests ethnic profiling", isn't quite on.

It was more likely careless and stupid verbal short-hand. The police are often obtuse and careless. What occurred in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside over the years with disappearing women and unmistakably clear clues to their disappearances never followed up, resulted in the deaths of at least a dozen women and more. Those abandoned women, slaughtered by a serial killer were prostitutes. Expendable in society.

Mr. Almalki feels the Government of Canada owes him, big time. He considers that $100-million might begin to compensate for those lost two years of agony. Two other Canadians, Ahmed El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin who suffered similar detention and torture, are suing for $50-million each. Of course they may continue living their lives, even with the trauma of memory.

The slaughtered women of Vancouver's hard streets, drug-addled and -dependent live on in the memories of those to whom they meant something dear. Their absences were considered to be trifles because they represented the truly seamy side of human nature.

In the case of Messrs. Almalki, El-Maati and Nureddin, the seamy side of human nature also figures.