Five detainees set to return from Syria held and mistreated by guards instead, lawyer says

Two Canadian women and three teenage girls who were set to be repatriated from camps for family members of ISIS suspects in Syria were instead detained and mistreated by their Kurdish guards rather than being taken to their pick-up point, their lawyer says.

The women have been missing ever since the repatriation flight to Canada took off without them more than 10 days ago. 

Edmonton lawyer Zachary Al-Khatib told CBC News that one of the women was able to make a short phone call to a relative Tuesday before the line dropped after 4 minutes. 

The woman said the five of them had been detained and mistreated by Kurdish authorities in what's known as "Red Prison" at al-Hol camp and at a second prison, said Al-Khatib.

"They were in real distress," Al-Khatib said. "There was a very short proof-of-life call. They wanted to come back to Canada."

Al-Khatib said the women require medical attention and are in need of assistance. He said he doesn't know why his clients were in Syria and he hasn't seen a "shred of evidence these two women travelled for the purposes of joining ISIS."

Global Affairs Canada said it now has credible information indicating the five Canadians are at Al-Roj camp.  

The Al-Roj camp is the location the Canadian government used as a meeting place earlier this month for those it brought back to Canada. The camps hold ISIS suspects and their family members. 

WATCH | Canada's plan to get families out of Syria led to 'mistreatment', lawyer says

Canadian women, children leaving ISIS camp in Syria, lawyer says

2 years ago

Duration 2:24

The lawyer for multiple Canadian women and their children long-detained in a Syrian camp for suspected ISIS members and their families told CBC News a deal has been reached to bring them home, and some may be on their way.

The five Canadians were supposed to be among a group of 19 Canadian women and children who were part of a federal court case. The federal government promised to bring them home. Only 14 made the flight on April 6.

Relatives in Canada received a frantic text message earlier this month from a woman at al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria saying she saw the women being put into a military vehicle on April 2 and taken away to the Red Prison, an interrogation site controlled by Kurdish authorities.

The Toronto Star was first to report on the developments on Monday. 

'We didn't think it was an actual possibility'

An audio recording from April 11 between the mother of one of the women and a Global Affairs official suggests allies warned Canada that sometimes citizens don't show up for repatriation flights at designated pick-up points. 

The Canadian official was calling the woman to tell her that efforts are underway to locate her daughter. 

During the roughly 16-minute recording, heard by CBC News, the Global Affairs official says Canada's repatriation efforts in the past have gone smoothly but other countries have warned that isn't always the case.

"We didn't want to believe that happens, but this has happened to other countries and they tried to warn us," the Global Affairs official told the mother a week ago. "And when it did actually happen, we were kind of shocked by it.

"We didn't think it was an actual possibility."

Human rights lawyer Alex Neve said the Global Affairs official's comment is telling. 

"It is stunning to hear any government official suggest they didn't think a human rights risk of this nature was a very real possibility in northeast Syria," said Neve, a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.

Neve is among those who have petitioned the government to repatriate its citizens. He said the government spent too much time resisting repatriation and is now scrambling to make the necessary arrangements without putting some detainees at risk.

Al-Khatib said it's "completely unacceptable and unbelievable" that the Canadian government failed to ensure the five women and girls made it safely to the pick-up point.

He said the women in the camps were told in late March by the Canadian government that they had to identify themselves to Kurdish authorities controlling the al-Hol camp and ask for transportation to al-Roj camp to be part of the repatriation effort.

"[The women] were extremely concerned about their personal safety," said Al-Khatib. "Al-Hol is a very dangerous place. They communicated their concerns. They were worried they were going to be assaulted, they were worried their physical safety was in jeopardy if they went to tell the guards they needed to be transported."

On the recording, the Canadian official tells the woman that the government is exhausting "every avenue" to try and find the missing women, and is requesting information from Kurdish authorities, NGOs, and other allies who have representatives on the ground in northeastern Syria.

The Global Affairs official is heard saying on the recording that Canadian officials told Kurdish authorities not to detain any Canadians it was repatriating.

The official also said Canadian representatives told Kurdish officials they wanted to bring 19 Canadians home, not 14, and that what happened wasn't right.

Looking for the 'Red Prison'

The official added the government was going to see if RCMP on the ground in the region can locate the women or find out any information about the Red Prison.

"We had never heard of it before," the Global Affairs official said on the audio recording. "We're kind of at a loss to what this prison is."

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Global Affairs Canada said in a media statement it "has taken extraordinary steps" to repatriate the 19 Canadian women and children.

The department said that "as long as conditions allow," it would work toward repatriating the two women and three teenage girls, but didn't say when that could happen.