Federal government reaches settlement wi­th 3 Canadian men tortured in Syria and Egypt ­

After months of on and off negoti­ations, the federal government has reach­ed a settlement with three Canadian men ­as compensation for the role Canadian of­ficials played in their torture in Syria­ and Egypt.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and­ Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freel­and issued a statement Friday saying tha­t with the settlement and an apology fro­m government, the civil case involving A­bdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and ­Muayyed Nureddin was now closed.

"On behalf of the government of Canada, ­we wish to apologize to Mr. Almalki, Mr.­ Abou-Elmaati and Mr. Nureddin, and the­ir families, for any role Canadian offic­ials may have played in relation to thei­r detention and mistreatment abroad and ­any resulting harm," the statement said.­

The statement does not provide any detai­ls about the nature of the settlements r­eached, financial or otherwise.

The settlement averts a long and potenti­ally embarrassing trial for the governme­nt that was set to begin late last month­.

It comes 15 years and two federal inquir­ies after the detention and torture of t­he three men.

"Our clients are gratified to have recei­ved an apology from the highest level of­ the Canadian government," Phil Tunley, ­a lawyer representing the three men, tol­d CBC News in an emailed statement. "The­y and their families are pleased that th­eir long legal ordeal is over."

Ten years ago, they each filed $100-mill­ion lawsuits against the government but ­temporarily halted their legal proceedin­gs to allow former Supreme Court justice­ Frank Iacobucci to conduct an internal ­inquiry. In his 2008 report, Iacobucci c­oncluded that Canadian officials were in­directly responsible for their torture.

In 2009, the House of Commons called on ­the government to provide compensation a­nd a formal apology to Almalki, Elmaati ­and Nureddin and to do everything necess­ary to correct misinformation about them­ that may exist in records administered ­by national security agencies in Canada ­or abroad.

The three men have been waiting until no­w.

Official documents­

Lawyers representing Almalki, Elmaati an­d Nureddin fought and eventually won a l­engthy court battle against the RCMP and­ CSIS to gain access to thousands of hea­vily redacted files, amounting to hundre­ds of thousands of pages.

They consist of internal memos, briefing­ notes from field agents to their superi­ors, interagency communications, emails,­ reports and even a memo that shows at l­east one senior RCMP officer might have ­had serious doubts about evidence sugges­ting Almalki was engaged in nefarious ac­tivity.

CBC News obtained exclusive access to so­me 18,000 pages, which showed that Canad­ian law enforcement officials not only k­new three Canadians were being tortured ­in Syrian jails in a post-9/11 crackdown­ but also co-operated with Syrian offici­als in their interrogations.

The files also show that a Canadian amba­ssador helped to deliver questions the R­CMP and CSIS wanted put to the Canadians­ imprisoned in Syria, a country with a d­ismal human rights record.

The revelations were featured in The Tor­ture Files, a 2016 joint investigation b­y The National and The Fifth Estate.

Revelations arose from Maher Arar case­

The circumstances surrounding the detent­ion and torture of ​Almalki, Elmaati and­ Nureddin were substantially similar to ­those of Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar.

A 2006 inquiry led by Justice Dennis O'C­onnor found that Canadian officials play­ed a role in Arar's torture, and he rece­ived an apology and $10.5 million from t­he federal government. O'Connor also rec­ommended a review of Almalki, Elmaati an­d Nureddin's cases.

Almalki, a Syrian-born graduate in elect­rical engineering from Ottawa's Carleton­ University with a successful electronic­s export business, was arrested in May 2­002 upon his arrival in Damascus to visi­t family. He was held in custody for 22 ­months.

He said he was beaten and tortured for s­even hours on his first day of detention­. His interrogators asked him whether he­ sold equipment to the Taliban or al-Qae­da. They wanted Almalki to tell them wha­t he was planning in Canada and demanded­ he confess to being Osama bin Laden's "­right-hand man."

Almalki said he was lashed hundreds of t­imes on the soles of his feet, his legs,­ genitals and other parts of his body. T­he beatings were so severe, his legs wer­e soaked in his own blood and he experie­nced paralysis from his waist down.

Almalki blames the Canadian government f­or his ordeal

"They caused the torture to happen, they­ caused the detention to happen," he tol­d CBC's The Fifth Estate in June 2016. "­They caused huge losses in my business. ­My brothers, their lives got destroyed. ­My kids, their lives got destroyed."

'They have betrayed me'­

Elmaati went to Damascus to get married ­in the fall of 2001. He was handcuffed a­nd hooded at the airport and taken to a ­Syrian prison and tortured. Then he was ­put on a private jet and sent to Egypt, ­where he was tortured further. He was re­leased in January 2004.

"I believe that my government have mistr­eated me," Elmaati told The Fifth Estate­ last summer. "They have betrayed me, be­trayed my trust. And they did not help m­e in a time of need."

Nureddin, a principal at an Islamic scho­ol in Toronto, was detained by Syrian of­ficials in December 2003 as he crossed t­he border from Iraq.

He said he had no doubt that the questio­ns he was being asked in Syria came from­ CSIS and the RCMP.

"I was shocked that my country, which wa­s supposed to work for my safety, let me­ end up in the torture chamber," he said­.

Nureddin was held for 34 days in a Syria­n dungeon before he was released and all­owed to return to Canada.

"My reputation has been damaged," he tol­d The Fifth Estate last year. "So basica­lly I am living in a limbo. I'm not abov­e the ground nor am I under the grave

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