Arar #23: More on Ahmad Abou El Maati

El-Maati is the truck driver who was stopped at the U.S. border & found with a map of Ottawa that raised customs officials’ suspicions, in August of 2001. He was watched by Canadian police for a few months after that. In November 2001 he traveled to Syria, where he was detained, allegedly tortured, and allegedly questioned about information that had to come from the Canadian police. This probably started the chain of events that ended in Maher Arar’s deportation and torture.

That’s as quick a summary as I can give–there’s much more in this post.

Anyway–El Maati is still in Egypt, but he and a friend of his described as “an Islamic religious leader in Toronto”, have recently talked to a few reporters. He is expected to return to Canada soon.

Here are the two articles I found:

1. From the Globe and Mail, 3/20/04:

The RCMP probe seems to have focused mostly on Mr. El-Maati, who has complained that spies were dogging him in Canada in the summer of 2001, especially after he was interrogated by U.S. border guards.

A map of Ottawa was discovered in the transport truck he was driving and appears to have caused concern that he planned to launch a terrorist strike there. He denied the map was his, and his employer drafted a letter saying that the truck’s previous driver had an Ottawa route.

Mr. El-Maati flew to Syria in the fall of 2001, where he was immediately arrested. He has since said he was tortured there by captors who asked questions that seemed to be based on information that first surfaced in North America.

Aly Hindy, an Islamic religious leader in Toronto, said his friend first came under suspicion because he was known to have spent time in Afghanistan. But the imam said that Mr. El-Maati was never part of any plot, though he was tortured into admitting as much.

“They tortured him until he told them, ‘What do you want me to say?’ Imam Hindy said in a recent interview. “. . . He said, ‘What if I used a truck?’ They said, ‘Okay, very good idea but which building are you going to hit?’

“. . .So he said, ‘How about the Parliament Buildings?’ They said, ‘Oh, it’s a very, very good idea.’

“So he wrote everything and signed, and after that they didn’t touch him and they sent him to Egypt,” Imam Hindy said.

2. From The Toronto Star, 2/25/04:

In his first interview since being released last month, Ahmed Abou-Elmaati said his bags are packed and as soon as he obtains travel documents he will leave Cairo.

Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Reynald Doiron confirmed yesterday that consular officials are working with Elmaati to help him obtain the required exit visa.

Elmaati, who spent more than two years behind bars, first in Syria, then in Egypt, wants more than anything to come home to tell his story.

“I need my file to be closed. I need to show my innocence and I think this will not happen unless I go back to Canada,” Elmaati said in a telephone interview yesterday.

The former Toronto resident, whose case may become a crucial link in determining why U.S. authorities deported Canadian Maher Arar to Syria, said he has been denied a consular escort and fears he may again be detained as he travels.

It’s believed Arar was deported in part because he knew Elmaati (who had been the focus of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation and interviewed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and Abdullah Almalki, an Ottawa resident who is still being held in Syria.

Born in Kuwait, Elmaati holds both Canadian and Egyptian citizenship. He said he hasn’t been threatened since being released last month but worries about his flight home.

“Actually, to tell you the truth, I’m very doubtful I would reach (Toronto) because I believe something will happen to me on the way back,” he said yesterday.

Scarborough imam Aly Hindy, who met with Elmaati when he was in Cairo earlier this month, said Elmaati was tortured, which included being stripped naked, drenched with water and then having live electrical wires placed on his body.

Hindy said it was this torture that prompted Elmaati to sign a confession about plotting to drive a bomb-laden truck into the Parliament buildings in Ottawa.

This tends to confirm my working hypothesis, but it’s not really detailed enough to make a real judgment or evaluate El Maati’s or Hindy’s credibility. If El Maati and Almalki actually make it back to Canada, and one or both of them talks to the press–El Maati definitely seems to want to–we’ll know more.

At any rate, with Almalki’s release one less person is being tortured. Which seems like an intrinsically good thing, even if the guy does turn out to be guilty of something.

I haven’t seen many stories generated by the inquiry itself yet. And U.S. press coverage has gone from pathetic to completely non-existent.

I don’t know the status of Arar’s lawsuit in the U.S., either. If I get a chance over spring break I may go to the district court in Brooklyn and try to view the file, if any of it’s publicly available. (I realize that’s the dorkiest use of spring break ever–don’t worry, I’ve got other plans as well.) But I don’t know if I’ll have time, as I’ll only be in New York for a few days.

By the way, if anyone has any suggestions about how to get people to care about this, I’m all ears. Because if I see one more thing about how those hysterical lefties are slandering our honorable attorney general, or one more condescending “MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT–I BLAME JOHN ASHCROFT” post from he-who-must-not-be-linked-to-by-me, I may be forced to go all Joe Lieberman on people.

(I actually briefly considered writing an email to Dennis Kucinich on this–yes, I’m THAT desperate for a Congressperson to take this up.)