Canada doesn't want information gleaned through torture, she writes

OTTAWA - CSIS does not want intelligence from foreign agencies if the information may have been obtained by torture, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan says, contradicting testimony from senior CSIS officials last year at the Arar inquiry. In a letter to Amnesty International, 10 months after it raised the issue, Ms. McLellan says that to protect privacy and human rights, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is very careful about the information it exchanges with foreign agencies. But her comments, released yesterday in response to allegations that Canadian authorities may have been party to torture in Syria, are at odds with CSIS policy as senior officials at the agency outlined it at the Arar commission of inquiry. They said CSIS would use information obtained by torture if it could be corroborated.

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