Today’s hearing heard from two witnesses, Dr. Payne a psychiatrist who has examined Mr. Mahjoub in the past and as late as June 2011. The second was Murray Lumley who is one of M.’s sureties and a court appointed supervisor of M. whenever he needs to travel out of his geographical zone as defined by his bail conditions.
Dr. Payne said he has treated about 1500 refugee cases and several thousand more other cases. What I heard of Dr. Payne’s testimony – indicated that M. exhibits ‘psychosocial’ depression brought on by the restrictive conditions he has had to live under for more than eleven years. Dr. Payne described M. as having a particular personality style of liking orderliness and perfection and structure, attributes that fit him well for being an accountant or a manager but not so well for being incarcerated and having most decisions made for him by others. Dr. Payne described M. as being preoccupied with his case, spending much time writing and thinking about it. He described M. as one whose response to the intrusive and restrictive conditions is one of repressing the feelings about it rather than resort to any kind of violence. His irritability and anger at how he and his family have been treated by CBSA is expressed in words, not actions. Dr. Payne said that M. exhibits typical ‘post traumatic stress syndrome’ that he has seen in other patients who have been tortured – where they can talk about the most horrific things that should cause extreme emotions, but not show the emotions – ‘emotional numbing’, the emotions being repressed. Dr. Payne spoke of other things in this vein and did suggest that it might take some time for M. to heal and expand his orbit of associations and interests once given his freedom. Dr. Payne described M. as a person who does self-therapy. M. describes himself as one who has suffered hardships for quite a while and he feels like he is able to continue to do that. Dr. Payne thought that this attitude was a successful survival technique for M.
Ministers Counsel David Payne attacked Dr. Payne’s testimony in four ways – 1. M. may be lying about his past and the pressure of doing this may account for his depression and anger; 2. the two marriage separations with his wife since 2000 and the separation from his family may account for the depression and other symptoms; 3. M. has an Obsessive-Compulsive disorder that may account for his depression and symptoms; 4. M. could be prescribed drugs and/or therapy to deal with his depression and symptoms.
Dr. Payne countered all of these possibilities – for example drugs and therapy may help a ‘biological depression’ but M. is depressed only because of the lengthy house arrest he finds himself in. In fact therapy may have the adverse effect of exposing the angry feelings that would then have to be dealt with. Dr. Payne when accused of ‘believing’ M. said that part is only the ‘history’ of the patient. Dr. Payne also watches the demeanor and other reactions of the patient to determine if these are consistent with the story the patient is telling.
In the afternoon Murray Lumley was the witness for about a half hour. He spoke from the affidavit prepared earlier regarding his outings with M. to shop for items and visit the doctor. The emphasis was that M. has always done his part to secure permission from CBSA the required time ahead, and when out Mr. Lumley has never seen any attempt on the part of M. to violate any conditions such as trying to speak to someone or use a cell phone or computer. In fact M. reminds Mr. Lumley of any conditions that need to be adhered to. M. is seen to be fastidious in his adherence to his conditions. Mr. Lumley also refererred to a letter written by himself, M. Jaballah and H. Almrei dated December 2005 – in support of James Loney and the other Christian Peacemaker Teams people who were kidnapped in Iraq. The letter asked the kidnappers to show gratitude for the support given by James and others to the detained in Canada by showing mercy to those kidnapped in Iraq. It was a letter of ‘peace’, not violence. The letter was entered as an court exhibit.
Please come to Rally and Press Scrum – outside Federal Court – 180 Queen St. W. (near Osgoode subway station). Thurs. Dec. 15, 8:30 am and then come to the courtroom on 6th floor.
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