Canadian men held and tortured in Syria receives $31.3 million from Ottawa

Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin were accused of having links to al-Qaeda.

The three Canadians will now share the sum of money Ottawa has paid them.

An investigation, which was carried out in 2008, found the Canadian officials had a role behind the imprisonment and torture of the three men.

The investigation and its report somewhat forced Ottawa to pay a compensation or settlement amount to the three men.

Amalki was an electronics engineer at the national capital of Canada when he was arrested in 2002 and later spend 22 months behind the bars.

The other former accused, El Maati, was a truck driver in Toronto. He was arrested in 2001 over the similar charge with links to terrorism.

El Maati was held for 26 months since 2001, who was also transferred to Egypt once.

He went to Syria to attend a wedding party but could not return to his own country then.

Nureddin, a former geologist, went to Iraq to meet his family and was held by Syrian officials after he crossed the border in December 2003.

The Toronto man was held for 34 days in total between late 2003 and early 2004.

However, all the three men have denied any links to the terrorist group.

All the three men had filed a lawsuit of $100 million against the Canadian government, which was put on hold till the conclusion of the inquiry by the Supreme Court.

(Reporting by Suman Das)