Thursday, March 22, 2007

why: CND police doing US army work in Canada?

Police doing U.S. army's 'bidding,' group says
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OMAR EL AKKAD March 22, 2007 – TheGlobeandMail

A war resisters' support group says Toronto police officers came looking to question a U.S. army deserter, and it accused police of doing the U.S. military's "bidding."

The Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign issued a press release yesterday saying that three plainclothes officers visited the home of a Toronto family on March 13 looking for Joshua Key. Mr. Key, 28, is a former combat engineer with the U.S. army who fled to Canada in 2003 after serving in Iraq.

The family gave Mr. Key shelter when he arrived in Canada four years ago. According to the group, the officers identified themselves as being with the Toronto police and said they wanted to ask Mr. Key some questions about allegations he made in his autobiographical book, The Deserter's Tale.

In his the book, Mr. Key describes several incidents involving American U.S. troops in Iraq, including one in which he says he saw soldiers playing soccer with the heads of decapitated Iraqis.

On the same day that police allegedly visited the Toronto family, the group says an investigative division of the U.S. army also phoned the Canadian Peace Alliance, an umbrella organization associated with the war resisters' group, looking for Mr. Key.

Last month, police in Nelson, B.C., arrested Kyle Snyder, another deserter, but eventually released him without charge. They were acting on a detention order issued by the Canada Border Services Agency.

"These incidents raise serious questions about who is giving direction to Canadian law enforcement," Lee Zaslofsky, a member of the War Resisters Support Campaign, said yesterday. "In both Nelson and Toronto it seems that local police forces did the bidding of the U.S. military. We want to know why."

Toronto police did not respond to a request for comment.

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