{"id":918343,"date":"2026-10-02T22:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T22:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/918343\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T22:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T22:34:11","slug":"canada-u-s-failed-to-properly-probe-allegations-that-russia-was-behind-havana-syndrome-bolton-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/918343\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada, U.S. failed to properly probe allegations that Russia was behind Havana Syndrome, Bolton says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., in June.Cliff Owen\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton says Ottawa and Washington have failed to adequately investigate whether Russia<\/a> used directed energy against Canadian and U.S. diplomats in Cuba almost a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bolton told The Globe and Mail Friday that he suspected Russian involvement when first informed about mysterious illnesses affecting U.S. diplomats shortly after taking up duties during President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> first term.<\/p>\n

He was ousted from the Trump administration in 2019 after foreign-policy clashes.<\/p>\n

U.S. and Canadian diplomats serving in Cuba from 2016-18 and their families reported sudden, unexplained brain injuries with symptoms of nosebleeds, dizziness, blurred vision, confusion and memory loss.<\/p>\n

The symptoms, known as Havana Syndrome, occurred in the evenings after they heard a noise while at their homes in Havana.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bolton said it was well known that the Russians had \u201cdone various things with directed energy before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason Havana may have been the first place to try it is that it was a place other than Moscow where the Russians could operate with complete freedom of action. But they did it in other places, too,\u201d he said. \u201cThat says to me that they were experimenting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Globe reported last week<\/a> that a Canadian diplomat was sharing intelligence with American spies in Havana and that Canadians were using satellite equipment brought into Cuba by the U.S. when officials from both countries began experiencing debilitating illnesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be that they [Canadians] were involved in espionage and that made them particularly interesting to the Russians and the Cubans, too,\u201d Mr. Bolton said. He said \u201cpeople would be stunned if that didn\u2019t happen\u201d since Canada is part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance with the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand. <\/p>\n

Global Affairs Canada (GAC) has denied that Canadian diplomats were involved in espionage in Cuba. The department says the diplomats should deal with their health ailments through the Federal Workers\u2019 Compensation Service.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Justice Department triggered a rare national-security provision to keep secret new details of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by the Canadian diplomats.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit \u2013 now under court seal and subject to a publication ban \u2013 was amended in the summer of 2024 after a joint investigation by CBS\u2019s 60 Minutes and Germany\u2019s Der Spiegel. They reported that the illnesses could have been tied to Russian military intelligence using sonic weaponry.<\/p>\n

A former senior Global Affairs official, who was involved with security and intelligence operations, told The Globe last week that the department always suspected Russia was behind the attacks but could not say so publicly because it had no proof. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada’s embassy in Havana, Cuba, in 2018.Desmond Boylan\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

The U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) reported in 2023 that five of seven U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that it was \u201cvery unlikely\u201d that a foreign adversary was responsible for the illnesses suffered by U.S. diplomats. Global Affairs Canada came to the same conclusions in a 2024 report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Canadian government and the U.S. government have both failed to perform here in my view,\u201d Mr. Bolton said. <\/p>\n

He said the U.S government did not seriously pursue the hypothesis that Russia had developed directed-energy weapons and that they would test them against American diplomats. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo say it is unlikely is not a sufficient answer,\u201d he said. \u201cI heard of people associated with the NIC study that there was a lot of dissatisfaction within the government, who were concerned [directed energy] wasn\u2019t being given adequate attention.\u201d <\/p>\n

In its 2024 report, Global Affairs said the symptoms suffered by 10 diplomats and their families were \u201cnot the result of a malicious act of a foreign actor or foreign actors.\u201d It attributed the symptoms to \u201cpre-existing medical conditions, environmental factors and conventional illnesses.\u201d <\/p>\n

In its findings, GAC did not mention a joint 2023 study of directed-energy weapons by the National Research Council and Defence Research and Development Canada.<\/p>\n

That report said low-power lasers are already being used on people for crowd control during demonstrations and for deterring pirate ships.<\/p>\n

\u201cScientific literature shows that a DEW is suspected to be the cause of the \u2018Havana syndrome\u2019 reported by U.S. personnel in Cuba,\u201d the joint report stated. \u201cPotential effects of DEWS like burning skin, eye damage or radiation sickness raise concerns under international humanitarian law, which prohibits inflicting superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Bolton and Paul Miller, the lawyer for the Canadian diplomats, blame an uncaring bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the bureaucracy doesn\u2019t want to face up to the potential that there were serious risks out there,\u201d Mr. Bolton said. <\/p>\n

Mr. Miller said Friday: \u201cThe diplomats and their family members have not been taken care of in any way since the attacks in Havana. After years of uncertainty, our clients deserve answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike Canada, however, the American government disbursed US$3-million in July to U.S. diplomats, spies and military personnel affected by Havana Syndrome. It is the first payment under an act of Congress to compensate the victims.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said the diplomats\u2019 unexplained health ailments were a human-resources concern for her department<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters later in the week that Ottawa does have a duty of care to the diplomats and has asked for a detailed briefing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former Canadian spies and retired senior security officials have called for an independent parliamentary examination on whether Russia targeted the diplomats for allegedly helping U.S. intelligence agencies, and how Ottawa subsequently treated the diplomats. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton outside the U.S. District Court in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":918344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,714],"class_list":["post-918343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}