Trudeau Backs Csis Amid Allegations Whistleblowers Smuggled Schoolgirls Into Is Territory

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending Canada’s Security Intelligence Service after details in a new book reignited controversy over its overseas operations and how it used informants to obtain information about the Islamic State group. The book, The secret story of the five eyes, by journalist Richard Kerbaj, is published this week. It details a 2015 meeting where Richard Walton, then head of Scotland Yard, told CSIS officials they were going too far in their dealings with an informant on the Syria-Turkey border. Mr. Kerbaj writes that the informant was a smuggler who provided Ottawa with information about people he transported to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, including three British students who were 15 and 16 years old when they made the trip that year. . The girls’ stories were later covered extensively by the international media, turning them into symbols of a wave of radicalization. “If you run agents, you accept what they do,” Mr. Walton told CSIS officials, according to an excerpt from the book published in the Sunday Times. “You turn a blind eye to their actions because a rich vein of intelligence runs through them.” Mr. Trudeau was pressed during a news conference in Ottawa on Wednesday about CSIS’s alleged role in allowing this human trafficking to continue and whether the spy agency had covered up its dealings with the whistleblower. He said the fight against terrorism “requires our intelligence services to continue to be flexible and creative”. He would not comment directly on the matter of the CSIS whistleblower and the British students, but said Canada’s intelligence officers are “bound by strict rules, by principles and values ​​that Canadians hold dear, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And we expect those rules to be followed.” Mr. Trudeau was once an outspoken critic of anti-terror legislation. In the 2015 election that brought him to power, he campaigned on a vow to reform CSIS. At the time, extremists from several countries, including Canada, traveled to the region to join or marry fighters of the Islamic State group, which used its territory to stage attacks abroad – including an operation that killed 130 people in Paris in 2015. Information Agencies such as CSIS were under pressure to produce information about the travelers and aid the military effort that would eventually oust the terrorist group. Canada has never confirmed or denied that it was exploiting moles on the Turkish border. Turkey was the first to claim the existence of such a relationship. In 2015, the country arrested Mohammed al-Rashed, a 28-year-old man it identified as an Islamic State people smuggler. Turkey’s foreign minister said publicly that the suspect was feeding information about travelers to an unnamed Western intelligence agency. Turkish media identified CSIS as the agency in question, citing the jailed smuggler’s alleged confessions, as well as hidden camera footage he had taken of his efforts to help the schoolgirls cross the border. He is still imprisoned in Turkey. Canada is silent on alleged CSIS ties to man helping girls go to Syria British lawyer Tasnime Akunjee, who represents the families of the former students, told The Globe and Mail that Canada should conduct an investigation into these events. Two of the women are believed to have died in the Islamic State war zone, he said. He added that the third, Shamima Begum, is languishing as a prisoner of war in a Kurdish prison camp, where her newborn child died in harsh conditions. “Canada has a history of not applying strict democratic values ​​when it comes to security operations,” Mr. Akunjee said. He was referring to Canadian public inquiries from the early 2000s that revealed how CSIS and RCMP security operations led to the detention and torture of Canadian citizens abroad. “Canada seemed to have no problem spending its treasure and time to traffic Shamima Begum through a safe haven in Syria,” Mr. Akunjee said. “We would like an investigation into how this happened.” A new book has reignited controversy over the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s overseas operations.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press The UK’s Metropolitan Police Service (the official name for Scotland Yard) did not respond to requests for comment about the 2015 meeting. CSIS also did not respond to requests for comment. Some observers say that paid informants are valuable to security agencies precisely because they are caught up in illegal activities, and that this would amount to a crucial part of the smuggler’s story. “Did he provide information that led to Canadians not being smuggled?” asked Leah West, a former federal Justice Department attorney who teaches national security law at Carleton University. “This information could have had a positive impact on Canadian national security,” he said. “But we don’t know what he gave us.” The BBC reported this week that it had received a dossier of information on the smuggler. The report says he passed information to the Canadian embassy in Jordan and handed over the passport details of the three students – but only after they had already crossed into Syria. According to the BBC report, he also helped Canadian intelligence officers map the locations of Islamic State fighters’ homes and provided screenshots of online conversations he had with them. When Turkey first presented its allegations against CSIS in 2015, Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals were the third party in the House of Commons. At the time, Mr. Trudeau pledged to institute enhanced oversight of CSIS if elected prime minister. Once the Liberal government came to power, it made changes to the way the government oversees intelligence agencies. In recent years, newly empowered surveillance agencies have released reports suggesting that CSIS has at times erred in pursuing foreign fighters flocking to war zones. However, many details have been withheld from public release, and it is unclear today what actions have been taken to address the problems highlighted in these reports. “Although overseas business has always been a complex and risky business, the risks associated with combating [the Islamic State] are particularly challenging,” says a 2015 review by the former Security Intelligence Review Commission (now known as the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency). He talks about a case where “CSIS should have briefed the minister” and where Canadian diplomats were “inadequately briefed”. In 2020, the Federal Court issued a revised ruling regarding CSIS’s relationships with foreign informants. “The investigation into Canadian foreign fighters … is particularly challenging,” the ruling said. In it, Judge Patrick Gleeson criticizes the agency for not being forthright with the court about its intelligence operations. Our Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.

title: “Trudeau Backs Csis Amid Allegations Whistleblowers Smuggled Schoolgirls Into Is Territory Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-09” author: “Judy Martin”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending Canada’s Security Intelligence Service after details in a new book reignited controversy over its overseas operations and how it used informants to obtain information about the Islamic State group. The book, The secret story of the five eyes, by journalist Richard Kerbaj, is published this week. It details a 2015 meeting where Richard Walton, then head of Scotland Yard, told CSIS officials they were going too far in their dealings with an informant on the Syria-Turkey border. Mr. Kerbaj writes that the informant was a smuggler who provided Ottawa with information about people he transported to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, including three British students who were 15 and 16 years old when they made the trip that year. . The girls’ stories were later covered extensively by the international media, turning them into symbols of a wave of radicalization. “If you run agents, you accept what they do,” Mr. Walton told CSIS officials, according to an excerpt from the book published in the Sunday Times. “You turn a blind eye to their actions because a rich vein of intelligence runs through them.” Mr. Trudeau was pressed during a news conference in Ottawa on Wednesday about CSIS’s alleged role in allowing this human trafficking to continue and whether the spy agency had covered up its dealings with the whistleblower. He said the fight against terrorism “requires our intelligence services to continue to be flexible and creative”. He would not comment directly on the matter of the CSIS whistleblower and the British students, but said Canada’s intelligence officers are “bound by strict rules, by principles and values ​​that Canadians hold dear, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And we expect those rules to be followed.” Mr. Trudeau was once an outspoken critic of anti-terror legislation. In the 2015 election that brought him to power, he campaigned on a vow to reform CSIS. At the time, extremists from several countries, including Canada, traveled to the region to join or marry fighters of the Islamic State group, which used its territory to stage attacks abroad – including an operation that killed 130 people in Paris in 2015. Information Agencies such as CSIS were under pressure to produce information about the travelers and aid the military effort that would eventually oust the terrorist group. Canada has never confirmed or denied that it was exploiting moles on the Turkish border. Turkey was the first to claim the existence of such a relationship. In 2015, the country arrested Mohammed al-Rashed, a 28-year-old man it identified as an Islamic State people smuggler. Turkey’s foreign minister said publicly that the suspect was feeding information about travelers to an unnamed Western intelligence agency. Turkish media identified CSIS as the agency in question, citing the jailed smuggler’s alleged confessions, as well as hidden camera footage he had taken of his efforts to help the schoolgirls cross the border. He is still imprisoned in Turkey. Canada is silent on alleged CSIS ties to man helping girls go to Syria British lawyer Tasnime Akunjee, who represents the families of the former students, told The Globe and Mail that Canada should conduct an investigation into these events. Two of the women are believed to have died in the Islamic State war zone, he said. He added that the third, Shamima Begum, is languishing as a prisoner of war in a Kurdish prison camp, where her newborn child died in harsh conditions. “Canada has a history of not applying strict democratic values ​​when it comes to security operations,” Mr. Akunjee said. He was referring to Canadian public inquiries from the early 2000s that revealed how CSIS and RCMP security operations led to the detention and torture of Canadian citizens abroad. “Canada seemed to have no problem spending its treasure and time to traffic Shamima Begum through a safe haven in Syria,” Mr. Akunjee said. “We would like an investigation into how this happened.” A new book has reignited controversy over the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s overseas operations.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press The UK’s Metropolitan Police Service (the official name for Scotland Yard) did not respond to requests for comment about the 2015 meeting. CSIS also did not respond to requests for comment. Some observers say that paid informants are valuable to security agencies precisely because they are caught up in illegal activities, and that this would amount to a crucial part of the smuggler’s story. “Did he provide information that led to Canadians not being smuggled?” asked Leah West, a former federal Justice Department attorney who teaches national security law at Carleton University. “This information could have had a positive impact on Canadian national security,” he said. “But we don’t know what he gave us.” The BBC reported this week that it had received a dossier of information on the smuggler. The report says he passed information to the Canadian embassy in Jordan and handed over the passport details of the three students – but only after they had already crossed into Syria. According to the BBC report, he also helped Canadian intelligence officers map the locations of Islamic State fighters’ homes and provided screenshots of online conversations he had with them. When Turkey first presented its allegations against CSIS in 2015, Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals were the third party in the House of Commons. At the time, Mr. Trudeau pledged to institute enhanced oversight of CSIS if elected prime minister. Once the Liberal government came to power, it made changes to the way the government oversees intelligence agencies. In recent years, newly empowered surveillance agencies have released reports suggesting that CSIS has at times erred in pursuing foreign fighters flocking to war zones. However, many details have been withheld from public release, and it is unclear today what actions have been taken to address the problems highlighted in these reports. “Although overseas business has always been a complex and risky business, the risks associated with combating [the Islamic State] are particularly challenging,” says a 2015 review by the former Security Intelligence Review Commission (now known as the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency). He talks about a case where “CSIS should have briefed the minister” and where Canadian diplomats were “inadequately briefed”. In 2020, the Federal Court issued a revised ruling regarding CSIS’s relationships with foreign informants. “The investigation into Canadian foreign fighters … is particularly challenging,” the ruling said. In it, Judge Patrick Gleeson criticizes the agency for not being forthright with the court about its intelligence operations. Our Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.