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Iraqi-Canadian demands probe into his
torture in Syrian prison
By Stuart Bell
The StarPhoenix
Feb. 26, 2004
TORONTO -- An Iraqi-Canadian released a month
ago from a Syrian prison said Wednesday he was tortured by his
captors and wants to know whether Canada's security agencies played
any role in his arrest.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his
release, Muayyed Nureddin, 36, told reporters that military intelligence
officials in Damascus soaked him with water and beat the soles
of his feet with a cable.
The torturers wanted to know why he was carrying
$10,000 US in cash to Iraq, and asked about three men affiliated
with the Salaheddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, Ont., where
he once worked.
He said the Syrians, as well as Turkish border
agents, asked the same questions Canadian security agents had
put to him when he left Toronto, leading him to suspect the intelligence
services were sharing information.
Amnesty International has asked Prime Minister
Paul Martin and Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan to add Nureddin's
case to the inquiry into the treatment of Syrian-Canadian Maher
Arar, who was also tortured in Syria.
Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham told reporters
his department would investigate. "We take all accusations
of this treatment very seriously and will follow this matter up
with Syrian authorities," a foreign affairs official said.
Nureddin came to Canada as a refugee from Iraq
in 1994. He said CSIS agents visited him in 1999 or 2000 and asked
where he prayed, if he had been to Afghanistan (he said no) and
if he knew any Egyptians involved in the Islamic movement (again,
he said no).
In January 2001, Nureddin started working at the
Salaheddin Islamic School, which is affiliated with a mosque where
terror suspects such as Ahmed Khadr worshipped. He quit in June
2003 and started buying old cars to export to Iraq.
He was on his way to Iraq on Sept. 16 when he
was pulled out of a line at Toronto's Pearson airport by two security
agents who quizzed him for 45 minutes. They wanted to know if
he knew three men affiliated with the Salaheddin mosque, Hassan
Farhat, Subhat Allah Rasul and the imam, Aly Hindy. He said he
did. They also asked if he was involved in the mosque's accounting
centre, to which he replied that he wasn't.
The agents were interested in the $10,000 US he
was carrying with him, money he said friends had asked him to
deliver to relatives in Iraq. After a search by Customs agents,
he was allowed to board the flight.
He flew to Germany, where he met his brother and
together they drove to Turkey. As they were crossing into Syria,
Turkish border agents asked him if he worked at a Muslim centre
and, after thoroughly searching his car, let him go.
He drove through Syria and went on to Iraq. In
November, he went to Jordan to arrange to get the cars he had
shipped from Canada. He returned to Iraq and on Dec. 11 drove
to the Syrian border with his mother, sisters and brothers.
He planned to take a flight from Damascus to Amsterdam
and then on to Toronto, but he was detained and handcuffed to
a bed.
He was transferred to the Palestine Branch of
the Syrian military intelligence agency in Damascus, where he
was held in a cell five metres by six metres along with 30 to
40 other prisoners.
"I was told to undress, but for my underwear.
I was made to lie on the ground on my stomach. I was soaked with
cold water and a ceiling fan was put on.
"I was interrogated again. The officers did
not like my answers. I was made to lift my legs, still lying on
my stomach. The soles of my feet were lashed with a cable more
than a dozen times. I was told to stand and they poured cold water
on my feet. I was made to walk, while standing in one place for
ten minutes. Then they repeated the same process twice more."
Early in January 2004, he was forced to sign a
statement he could not read, he said, and on Jan. 13, he was told
he would be released.
©
StarPhoenix 2004
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