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Canadian sentenced to Syrian army service
An Ottawa man who has been detained in Syria for the last two years has been acquitted of terrorism charges but now faces 30 months of military service.
Abdullah Almalki, 34, was arrested in his native Syria in May 2002 and was later charged with being a threat to national security over his alleged al Qaeda links. The computer programmer had travelled from Ottawa to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in the early 1990s and volunteered for a charity that was under the regional direction of Ahmed Said Khadr, the Egyptian-Canadian who enrolled his sons in al Qaeda training camps. He died in Pakistan last year.
The case parallels that of Maher Arar, the Canadian detained in the U.S. and deported to Syria in 2002. A public inquiry is probing the role Canadian officials may have played in that case, and Almalki could testify if he is allowed to return to Canada. Over the weekend, a Syrian judge cleared the charges against Almalki but said he was now free to serve his compulsory military service, which he avoided until now because he had moved to Canada as a teenager.
But Almalki's family says he is in no shape to serve and wants the Canadian government to help obtain permission for him to return home. According to his brother, Youssef, during his time in jail, Almalki was hung by his hands, beaten and kept in a tiny cell. His experience has left him with post-traumatic stress disorder and an injured back, jaw, hip and feet. "He is in no shape to go to the military; it will kill him," his wife, Khuzaimah Kalifah, told The Globe and Mail via email. A Foreign Affairs spokesman in Ottawa told the newspaper the department is aware of Almalki's acquittal and is investigating. But in another report, Youssef Almalki said he was told that because his brother is a dual citizen, it is an internal Syrian matter. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-07-27 |
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