A handful of “rogue” Canadian spies on secret missions overseas were “tortured and hanged” though the truth was covered up and hidden from the Parliament and also the sleuths’ families, according to a tell-all book “The Man Behind the Bow Tie” by Arthur Porter (pictured above – Photo Credit: Montreal Gazette), the former head of Canada’s Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), the spy watchdog of the country’s intelligence agency CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service).
These spies were found to have snapped photographs of military facilities “without the formal approval” from the CSIS in a foreign country “not exactly a close friend of Canada”, according to the Toronto Sun about the release of the new memoir by Porter, a former medical doctor (oncologist) who headed the McGill University Health Center in Montreal before his SIRC spell between 2008-2011.
“Canadians ended up losing their lives. They were tortured and hanged. We had to keep the truth of how they died from their families, telling them instead that they fell off a balcony in Dubai, for example,” according to the Toronto Sun quoting Porter from his book.
“None of these incidents ever made the papers, and they were not isolated incidents. For whatever reason, agents sometimes went rogue, a bit too James Bond, and stretched the limits of their official position”.
The Sierra Leone-born Porter, always seen in his iconic bow tie, has been a controversial figure, who resigned three months prior to his SIRC term after the National Post reportedly alleged him of business dealings with a notorious international lobbyist and his own close ties to the president of Sierra Leone.
In mid-2013, the Canadian and American citizen Porter was at the center of the largest fraud investigation in Canadian history when he was arrested in Panama on alleged fraud charges relating to a kick-back scheme for the construction of the new billion-dollar hospital at the McGill University Health Center.
The release of his whistle-blowing book, to be released September 15, may raise some eyebrows considering his personal rogue history – Porter was understood to be still under arrest in Panama awaiting extradition to Canada.