An anti-war group is urging Canadian authorities to arrest former Vice President Dick Cheney when he travels to the Toronto Global Forum on Thursday.
The group, Lawyers Against the War, penned a letter to Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and Ontario Attorney General John Gerretsen saying it was their duty to arrest Cheney “as a person suspected on reasonable grounds of authorizing, counseling, aiding, abetting and failing to prevent torture.” The group campaigns for Cheney — who since leaving office in January 2009 has defended the George W. Bush administration’s use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques — to be arrested and investigated “as part of Canada’s mandatory legal obligation to prevent and punish torture globally.”
The former vice president made Canadian headlines last year when he canceled a trip to Toronto citing personal safety concerns, stemming from a trip to Vancouver in September 2012 which led to large protests.