Global Affairs tight-lipped on fate of Canadian men being held in Iraq

Not sympathetic as choices have consequences:

…Ottawa-based lawyer Nicholas Pope said he believes at least five Canadian men are being held in Iraq.

Pope said in an interview that a number of the men were recently permitted to phone family members.

He said he spoke directly with one of his detainee clients in June.

Pope said a common message emerged from these calls. “That the prison officials there, and all the officials that they’re talking to are saying, ‘We want you gone, we want Canada to take you, and we’re reluctantly putting you through the judicial system right now, only because Canada is not doing anything,’” he said.

“The big, really frustrating thing here is that we keep telling Canada this. We keep sending them letters saying Iraq wants these men gone.”

The names of the detained Canadian men are not publicly known, with the exception of Jack Letts, whose parents have waged a public campaign to urge Ottawa to help secure his release and passage to Canada.

Amnesty International has warned of serious rights violations and poor conditions in Iraq’s justice system, including overcrowded and unsanitary prisons, unfair trials and mass executions.

Pope said the detained Canadian men face serious risks in Iraq’s system.

“It’s well documented that Iraq’s judicial processes are not exactly fair, don’t have the same due process that we have in Canada,” he said.

“There’s a lot of bias against people who are perceived to have been involved with (the Islamic State) and there’s a huge risk of human rights abuses, torture to extract confessions, as well as these men receiving the death penalty.”

The Embassy of Iraq in Ottawa had no immediate response to a request from The Canadian Press for information on the status of the detained Canadians.

Matthew Behrens, co-ordinator of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, said in a recent media statement that Ottawa effectively holds the keys to the jail cells holding the Canadian men.

“By refusing to open those prison doors, we remain deeply complicit in their decade-long arbitrary detention,” Behrens said.

Source: Global Affairs tight-lipped on fate of Canadian men being held in Iraq