Source: The Canadian Press
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Date: March 27, 2008


MONTREAL — A French legal expert is warning Canada it will break international law if evidence obtained through torture is used to deport a suspected Basque terrorist.

Didier Rouget, a lawyer who has represented several torture victims, suggested Thursday that Canada is walking a dangerous line if it returns Ivan Apaolaza Sancho to Spain.

Sancho was arrested on a Quebec City ferry last summer and is wanted by Spain for a series of car bombings tied to the violent Basque separatist group ETA.

Sancho's legal team says his arrest warrant in Spain contains declarations from a woman who alleges she was tortured into making the statements.Rouget said information from Spanish security services must be used cautiously.

"The use of torture continues to be practised in Spain by security forces and the use of torture is considered frequent," Rouget told Sancho's deportation hearing.

William Sloan, Sancho's lawyer, said the arrest warrant copies verbatim the statements by Ana Belen Egues Gurruchaga, who was arrested by Spanish police in November 2001 following a Madrid car bombing.

Canadian immigration officials have tabled the warrant as part of their justification for Sancho's deportation.

Shortly after her release, Gurruchaga filed a sworn affidavit with a Spanish criminal court alleging she was beaten and psychologically tortured during her detention.

"While... one held my arms up and back, another one kicked the back of my feet and another two or three hit me on the head while the madman slapped me around," Gurruchaga's affidavit reads.

Sloan questioned why Gurruchaga made four statements to four different Spanish justice officials during her five-day detention.

"That is not common," said Rouget.

According to Rouget, international law says countries shouldn't use evidence if there are reasonable grounds to believe it was obtained through torture.

"All declarations that appear to have been made under torture must be rejected in all procedures in all jurisdictions," he testified.

Rouget's testimony also provided a detailed account of how Spanish police use aggressive interview tactics to extract information from suspects.

He said security officials take advantage of the country's anti-terror laws, which allow authorities to hold suspects without access to a lawyer or their families for up to five days.

"The first phase is to break the person's resistance so they're ready to make a declaration, then they're ripe," Roget said.

The Canadian Border Services Agency has no explicit policy governing use of evidence suspected of coming from torture.

"The agency will collect all the information it needs for a case," said agency spokesperson Eric Paradis.

"It will present all the evidence before a tribunal, and the tribunal will retain all the information it considers valuable, according to existing norms for evidence."

Despite the potentially explosive claims being made by Sancho's defence, the Spanish government appears to have little interest in the matter.

A consular official admitted earlier this week that they were unaware of the case.

In an interview with The Canadian Press earlier this week, Sancho denied ever supporting ETA and called for dialogue between the two sides.

Closing arguments for Sancho's deportation hearing will be made Friday.