Canadian citizen held in Egyptian prison without charges for past two years
Yahya Abdul Rahman
Montreal October 30, 2003 (MMN): On November 11th, 2001 Ahmad Abu El-Maati, a Canadian citizen of Egyptian origin, was traveling via Air Canada from Toronto to Syria with his mother, Samira, to meet his new bride who was waiting for him in Damascus. The two first landed in Frankfurt and then Vienna. His mother then proceeded on to Egypt and Ahmad continued his journey to Damascus. He was supposed to arrive there some time on November 12th, but he did not show up. After five days his father, Badra El-Maati, from his home in Toronto, wrote Prime Minister Jean Chretien inquiring about his son's whereabouts, but no one knew what happened to him and the Syrians were not talking. Several months later, August 2002 to be exact, it was discovered that his son was being held in an Egyptian prison, where he still remains. A representative from the Canadian consulate visited him at that time to inquire about his condition.
El-Matti, 39, had lived in Canada for 23 years, along with his mother and father and two siblings. They first lived in Montreal and then later moved to Toronto. Ahmad was not politically active and made a living as a truck driver.
According to his father, who is now retired, his son was approached by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and asked to become an informant and report back to them about the activities of members of the Muslim community. He flatly refused this request and some time later, for an unknown reason, the immigration application for his fiancé, who was living in Syria, was cancelled.
This is not the first time that allegations have arisen of CSIS agents asking Muslims to spy on their co-religionists here in Canada. For example, Adil Charkaoui, a 29 year Moroccan immigrant who was arrested in May 2002 in Montreal and who remains behind bars to this day, also says CSIS agents asked him to help the spy agency get information on members of the Muslim community, and more specifically to provide them with the names of the students in his mosque-based karate class. Charkaoui refused the request.
In fact, according to Muslim Council of Montreal president Salam Elmenyawi, as cited in a Montreal Mirror article earlier this summer by Ken Hechtman entitled "Defending Charkaoui," such requests for names of Muslims is consistent with CSIS procedures as has been described by other Montreal Muslims.
According to El-Matti, the details are unknown regarding who picked his son up or what happened when he landed in Syria on November 12th. He did say that his son was tortured by the Syrians and a couple of months later he was transferred to a prison in Cairo. He also feels, but has no concrete proof of it, that CSIS is paying his son back for his refusal to cooperate with them.
No charges were ever laid against him and in fact, said the father, three orders where given by the "Egyptian State Security Supreme Court" to have him immediately released.
Despite all of this, his son remains in prison and does not know when he will ever be released.
His mother visited him a little over a month ago and, besides a knee injury which was not being treated, he was in good condition and was not being tortured.
When asked why his son's case was kept so low key for such a long time, El-Matti said that he hoped that eventually the Canadian officials would do their job and secure his son's release. He was also watching carefully the cases of William Sampson, who was being held in a Saudi prison and was released earlier this year, and Maher Arar, who was held for over a year in a Syrian prison and too was recently released and brought back to Canada.
"The case of Maher Arar was what prompted me to finally speak out," stated El-Matti.
He stated that the efforts of Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, and his supporters, who launched a relentless public information campaign until Arar was released, was his main inspiration.
"The ironic thing about the case of my son," he stated, "is that Sampson and Arar were actually charged with something but were finally released, but in the case of Ahmad he is not being charged with any crime and yet he remains in prison."
Yesterday El-Matti faxed a letter to Amer Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League, asking him to intervene on his son's behalf.
Following the example of Arar's supporters, El-Matti is determined to launch a public information campaign to secure his son's release. He appeared on CBC television yesterday, and was also interviewed by phone on CKUT radio in Montreal later on in the day.
In the meantime, Ahmad's wife, before they even got a chance to live a singe day together, has divorced him in absentia and his reputation will be ruined even if it is found he is innocent of any wrong doing.
In a phone interview yesterday morning his mother, who is currently visiting Montreal and was a bit under the weather, said in a tired and raspy voice that "my dream is to have my son back with me soon."