London native Aaron Yoon jailed in Mauritania since December 2011
http://www.lfpress.com/2013/04/05/london-native-aaron-yoon-jailed-in-mauritania-since-december-2011
By Jennifer O'Brien, Kate Dubinski, The London Free Press
Friday, April 5, 2013 9:14:18 EDT PM
Londoner Aaron Yoon - connected to two al-Quaida-linked former city
schoolmates who died in the Algerian terror attacks - is behind bars in a
next-door African country on terrorism-related charges, a human rights
agency says.
But in an almost-unheard of move for prisoners and detainees held for
overseas terrorism, 24-year-old Yoon refused help from Amnesty
International, an advocate for the agency - who said he visited the young
Canadian several times in prison in Mauritania in 2012 - said Friday.
Yoon is serving a two-year prison sentence in the Saharan country, said
Gaetan Mootoo, a 27-year Amnesty veteran who works with people arrested and
accused as al-Qaida members and those who are tortured in prison.
He said he visited Yoon in June and July 2012.
"I tried desperately" to help, Mootoo, a 27-year Amnesty veteran, told The
Free Press from Paris.
"He doesn't want Amnesty to accompany him on his case."
Yoon behind bars is right where the Canadian Security and Intelligence
Service (CSIS) and the RCMP, probing the Algerian attacks, want him, said
former CSIS officer Michel Juneau-Katsuya.
Yoon's London family has insisted he went to Mauritania, a country so
dangerous Canada advises against travel there, to study Islam.
Even so, stuck in a prison, he's accessible to investigators who can use his
situation as leverage to try to find out who might have been involved in the
bloody January attacks on the gas plant in Algeria, he said.
"The Canadian authorities can say you better cooperate with us, or you are
going to be here for a long time."
Ali Medlej and Xristos Katsiroubas, two former London schoolmates of Yoon,
died in the Algerian attacks. Yoon has not been implicated in those.
Mootoo said Yoon told him he'd travelled to Mauritania to study Islam in May
2011.
But before the end of the year the former South Collegiate Institute student
found himself in jail, arrested by Mauritanian police. They scooped him up
in December 2011 at a hotel where he was living in Nouakchott, the country's
capital.
Seven months later, Mootoo said he travelled to the region to meet with
about 30 prisoners and detainees held in the Nouakchott prison for being
linked to al-Qaida.
Yoon was the only Canadian among them, said Mootoo, and the only prisoner
there - or anywhere else before - to refuse his help.
Torture, beatings and abuse in police custody and several prisons are common
in Mauritania.
The central prison in Nouakchott, where Yoon is held, is known for holding
al-Qaida prisoners.
At first the former Londoner refused to even speak with Mootoo. He said he
met with every prisoner and detainee to hear details of their cases and
offer Amnesty's help.
Mootoo said he was concerned and repeatedly asked to meet with Yoon, who
finally agreed to talk to him.
But while "friendly," Yoon steadfastly refused help.
"I've got a rare privilege and I try to deliver on it. He was in the
detention there and I was enjoying total freedom to go outside and inside
the prison," Mootoo said.
He said he explained his work to Yoon. "He accepts and understands it, and
on the basis of the information I'd given him, he didn't want Amnesty to
disclose his information or to (represent) him,"
Mootoo said Yoon "was with a group of detainees, they were sort of taking
care of him . . . he was learning Arabic."
Yoon and Mootoo conversed in English, he said.
Yoon's refusal to accept outside help could be a sign he was indoctrinated
into the extremist movement, said Juneau-Katsuya.
"These are young men who have been training and conditioned, and expecting
to be interrogated, tested. To refuse to collaborate with authorities is
part of what they were expecting," he said.
"The challenge we face with these customers is they became religious
zealots, so whatever they suffer in this mortal life it's for the
martyrdom."
Yoon's family maintains he went to Mauritania - a country known as a place
of Islam scholarship - to study the Qur'an and Arabic.
Once there, he met up with Medlej and Katsiroubas, who went on to Algeria
where they helped stage the horrific terror attacks that killed about 70
people including themselves.
But by the time those attacks took place, Yoon had been in prison for a
year.
Friday, Yoon's brother said the family believes Yoon has done nothing wrong.
"The Yoon family has maintained his inocence from the beginning and we still
do," said the brother.
With files from Randy Richmond, The Free Press
jennifer.obrien@sunmedia.ca
Nouakchott Central Prison
- Located in Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania
- Known for holding terrorist suspects and prisoners
- Torture, beatings and abuse in custody are common
- So is overcrowding, inmate violence and poor medical care
- Torture includes kicking, beating, arm-suspension, painful shackling,
electric shock, burning and sleep and food deprivation
THE STORY SO FAR
Jan. 16, 2013: al-Qaida-linked terrorists take more than 800 hostages at a
gas plant in Algeria. At least 39 hostages and 29 militants are killed.
Algerian authorities say two Canadians are among the militants killed.
April 1: Reports identify former London South Collegiate Institute students
Ali Medlej and Xristos Katsiroubas as the two militants killed in Algeria.
Both come from middle-class London families. Katsiroubas converted to Islam
while studying at South. Four Londoners apparently travelled to the region.
April 2: Aaron Yoon, a third former South student, is identified as a third
Canadian linked to Medlej and Katsiroubas. He converted from Catholicism to
Islam after graduating. Despite one report he's in a north African jail,
family members say he's studying Arabic and the Qur'an in Mauritania, in
northwest Africa, a country so dangerous Canada has a travel advisory
against visiting it.
April 3: The whereabouts of Benjamin Thomas, who lived with Medlej and
Katsiroubas in Edmonton briefly in 2007, and was charged with shoplifting
there along with Medlej, remain unknown. Thomas also is on the London police
most-wanted list. Is he the fourth man who travelled to the region? Foreign
affairs officials confirm a Canadian is detained abroad. Reports say he is
Yoon.
April 4: RCMP hold a news conference confirming that Medlej and
Katsiroubas's remains were found in Algeria. Without revealing much more,
they appeal for the public's help.
April 5: Mauritanian officials confirm Yoon is in one of the country's
prison, held on terrorism-related charges. Amnesty International reveals its
representatives visited Yoon in prison but he refused their help. He was
arrested in December 2011, convicted on terror charges and is serving a
two-year term.
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