Mauritanian authorities deny Canadian prisoner\'s torture claims

Canadian broadcaster CBC has claimed Aaron Yoon converted from Christianity to Islam Mauritanian security authorities have denied reports that a Canadian citizen arrested on suspicion of links to Islamist militant organisation al-Qaeda has been subjected to torture. Aaron Yoon was detained in Mauritania in December 2011, and was handed a two-year prison sentence last July for having contact with two other Canadian men who were later killed in an al-Qaeda-linked attack on an Algerian gas plant.
Yoon, in his early 20s, recently spoke to a journalist from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in which he accused the Mauritanian officials of torture, and claimed that Canadian authorities had failed to come to his aid.  \"I have been wrongfully accused, I\'ve been beat up and tortured. I\'m still sick and I still don\'t see any medical attention yet,\" he said.
Mauritania\'s ambassador to the UN and ambassador-designate to Canada, Ahmed Ould Teguedi told CBC that Yoon was being treated well, and the authorities would make sure that \"one or more Canadian lawyers are defending him.\"
Mauritanian sources confirmed that Yoon was reading the Qur\'an when he was captured in 2011, and had told authorities that he had travelled from Canada to Mauritania to learn Arabic. CBC reported that the Canadian citizen had made the journey to Mauritania after converting from Christianity to Islam. Western security officials said that several European and American individuals had migrated to North Africa to fight in the conflict in northern Mali.
The Canadian government have rejected Yoon\'s assertions that he had not been helped, explaining that he had been in touch with government officials up to nine times, since 2011. The government said it would continue to support Yoon, even though their assistance does not mean that he is innocent.