12 Facts About Abdullah Almalki

Abdullah Almalki was born on 1971 and is a Canadian engineer who was imprisoned and tortured for two years in a Syrian jail after Canadian officials falsely indicated to the Syrian authorities and other countries that he was a terrorist threat.

Abdullah Almalki was born in Syria and emigrated to Canada with his parents and three brothers in 1987 at the age of 16.

Abdullah Almalki graduated from Ottawa's Lisgar Collegiate Institute two years later, and the following year received his Canadian citizenship.

Abdullah Almalki attended Carleton University and obtained his degree in electrical engineering, and was consistently scoring at the top of his class.

In 1992, Abdullah Almalki sponsored an Afghan orphan through a Canadian NGO, and decided to travel to the country for three months.

However, the organisation had brought back Ahmed Khadr as their regional director, after he recuperated from an earlier injury, and Abdullah Almalki found his leadership and workaholic tendencies to be overbearing, and left the organisation in April 1994, earlier than intended.

In 2000, and again following the September 11,2001 attacks, CSIS agent Violaine Pepin spoke to him to ask about a Muslim associate with a pilot's license with whom Abdullah Almalki had flown to Hong Kong in 1999 to sell radios in the final weeks of Y2K.

In January 2002, Abdullah Almalki was one of seven targets of simultaneous search warrants by Project O Canada.

On May 3,2002, Abdullah Almalki arrived in Syria for the first time since he was a child, to visit his ill grandmother.

Abdullah Almalki's arrest was based on information sent to the Syrians by the Canadian government.

Abdullah Almalki was released on $125 bail in March 2004 and the Syrian State Supreme Security Court acquitted him of all charges in July 2004.

Abdullah Almalki's case was taken up by many organizations in Canada, including Amnesty International.