Canadian held in Syrian jail returns home (helped Abu Bakr the Albanian scout targets along border)

theglobeandmail.com ^ | Tuesday, August 10, 2004 | COLIN FREEZE

[Destro]

Canadian held in Syrian jail returns home

Detained for two years, Abdullah Almalki suddenly permitted to leave the country

By COLIN FREEZE

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - Page A4

The latest Arab Canadian to be freed from Syria says he is "happy to be back safely in Canada" for the first time in more than two years.

In an e-mail circulated to journalists, 33-year-old Abdullah Almalki said he would speak further only when he recovers "from the ordeals I have been through."

The dual Syrian-Canadian citizen has been at the centre of an international intrigue spanning many years, many countries and similar detentions of other naturalized Canadians -- including Maher Arar, whose deportation from the United States to Syria is the subject of a judicial inquiry.

Mr. Almalki and Mr. Arar were among several men investigated in Canada for possible links to terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. The RCMP made no arrests, but Mr. Almalki had apparently been placed on a terrorism lookout list by the time he left Canada later that fall.

Mr. Almalki, a computer programmer based in Ottawa, spent several months in Malaysia before his arrest in a Damascus airport in May, 2002. He has told friends and family that in the two years that followed, the Syrians tortured him during interrogations.

In the e-mail, Mr. Almalki fails to say when he returned to Canada, though some sources say he was on an Austrian flight last week. Although he makes no mention of Foreign Affairs officials who had been working on his case, he thanks the Canadian public and journalists for their interest in him.

"I also would like to thank the Syrians for allowing me to return home to Canada," he wrote.

Freed from prison in the spring, Mr. Almalki had been unable to leave Syria because he faced a charge that he was a security threat. He was acquitted last month only to be told that he would be conscripted into Syria's army. Canada had sent a diplomatic note asking the Syrians to reconsider drafting Mr. Almalki, but heard nothing back.

"I'm pleased to see he has cleared the final hurdle," said Dan McTeague, an MP who travelled to Syria in March to push for Mr. Almalki's rights. "It's been a very terrible ordeal for him."

Neither he nor Foreign Affairs officials had been told of Syria's decision to allow Mr. Almalki to return to Canada.

It remains unclear just how Mr. Almalki triggered security concerns in the first place. He emigrated to Canada in his teens, and a decade ago he travelled to Pakistan, telling friends he was volunteering for a Muslim charity. At the time, however, the charity's Peshawar office was controlled by Ahmed Said Khadr, a Canadian who later emerged as a major al-Qaeda suspect before being slain by Pakistani agents last year.

Another incident that may have prompted scrutiny was that a month before the 2001 attacks, a truck driver whom Mr. Almalki knew was detained by U.S. border guards, who had questions about a map showing schematics of Ottawa buildings.

E-mail records since discovered show that in August, 2001, al-Qaeda leaders had asked an operative known as "Abu Bakr the Albanian" to scout out possible targets along the Canada-U.S. border. It is unclear whether this information was relevant to the case of the Kuwaiti-born truck driver, Ahmad Abou El-Maati, but Mr. El-Maati found himself under intense scrutiny after he returned to Canada and before he flew to Syria in November, 2001. He was arrested immediately. This spring, he returned to Canada to write a sworn statement, saying that the Syrians forced him to falsely confess to a bomb plot and implicate everyone he knows -- including Mr. Almalki and Mr. Arar.

That information may have played a role in searches that took place in the winter of 2002, as the RCMP executed a warrant against Mr. Almalki and asked his friends and family about whether he sold electronic equipment to Pakistani military sources.

But Mr. Almalki was abroad at the time and the RCMP never sought an arrest warrant against him. It was the Syrians who took him into custody as he flew into Damascus.

[Destro]

Bosnian Muslim soldiers helped carry out 9/11 and Albanians were scouting for targets in America.

Thanks for the allies Bill Clinton!

Oh, and FU to Canada, eh?

[Destro]

bump

[Destro]

Non-Arab recruits scout for al-Qaeda (posing as Christians in America) - To avoid the intense scrutiny on travelers from certain Middle Eastern countries, al-Qaeda is believed to be using operatives from Chechnya, Bosnia and, when possible, Western Europe. Not all are Arab, and not all are men. All are thought to be Muslim, but a few have pretended to convert to Christianity to deepen their cover, the senior intelligence official said.

[nw_arizona_granny]

ping to the names in the article.

[sheik yerbouty]

"Al Qanada"