U.S.A. and Israel on torture watchlist

Foreign Affairs places U.S., Israel on torture watchlist

David Ljunggren, Reuters
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2008

OTTAWA -- Foreign Affairs has put the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured and also classifies some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, according to a document obtained by Reuters Thursday.

The revelation is likely to embarrass the Harper government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel.

The document -- part of a training course on torture awareness given to diplomats -- mentions the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man is being held.

The man, Omar Khadr, is the only Canadian in Guantanamo. His defenders said the document made a mockery of Ottawa's claims that Mr. Khadr was not being mistreated.

Under "definition of torture" the document lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding prisoners.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier tried to distance Ottawa from the document.

"The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect the views or policies of this government," he said.

The document was provided to Amnesty International as part of a court case it has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.

Mr. Khadr has been in Guantanamo Bay for five years. He is accused of killing a U.S. soldier during a clash in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15.

Right groups say Mr. Khadr should be repatriated to Canada, an idea that Prime Minister Stephen Harper rejects on the grounds that the man faces serious charges.

"At some point in the course of Omar Khadr's detention the Canadian government developed the suspicion he was being tortured and abused," said William Kuebler, Mr. Khadr's U.S. lawyer.

"Yet it has not acted to obtain his release from Guantanamo Bay and protect his rights, unlike every other Western country that has had its nationals detained in Guantanamo Bay," he told CTV.

Other countries on the watch list include Syria, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

A spokeswoman at the U.S. embassy said she was looking into the report. No one was immediately available for comment at the Israeli embassy.

The torture awareness course started after Ottawa was strongly criticized for the way it handled the case of Maher Arar, who was deported from the United States to Syria in 2002.

Mr. Arar says he was tortured repeatedly during the year he spent in Damascus prisons. An inquiry into the case revealed that Canadian diplomats had not received any formal training into detecting whether detainees had been abused.

Reuters © 2008