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The sad downward spiral of an internationally respected Canadian rights agency continued Tuesday as new allegations of financial irregularities surfaced concerning the board of directors.

Montreal-based Rights & Democracy has been embroiled in a debilitating factional war for months that has pitted staunch pro-Israel elements of the board against other board members and staff.

Defenders of the deceased past president, Remy Beauregard, say he was the victim of an ideologically driven witch hunt that reflects the Harper government's pro-Israel position.

"I want the reputation of my husband to stop being tarnished by people who, in my opinion, are acting in bad faith," Mr. Beauregard's tearful widow told a House of Commons committee on Tuesday.

Suzanne Trepanier is demanding a full and independent public inquiry.

The current board chairman, Aurel Braun - and a recently appointed majority that supports him - say the impasse is over agency "dogmatism" and a lack of transparency and accountability by Beauregard and his senior managers.

But those allegations were turned on their ear when former board member Payam Akhavan testified alongside Ms. Trepanier.

Mr. Akhavan, a law professor at McGill University, claimed that before he quit the board in January he had seen that it's budget was on track to more than double that of the previous year.

"A big part of that were honoraria that went to board members who come here [to the committee]and speak as though they are volunteers," he said.

Mr. Akhavan said Jacques Gauthier, a board member who served as acting president after Beauregard's death of a heart attack in January, had charged 11 days worth of honorariums for a six-day trip to China. He also alleged that board member Marco Navarro-Genie charged four extra days for personal time spent in Haiti on agency business.

More explosively, Mr. Akhavan alleged that while Mr. Gauthier was acting president he gave Mr. Navarro-Genie a one-week agency contract "as a senior adviser, for an unspecified amount of funds for an unspecified mandate."

Mr. Akhavan said he was unaware of a sitting board member ever getting a contract from Rights & Democracy: "It would seem self-evidently a conflict of interest for any board member to give a contract to another board member."

New Democrat MP Paul Dewar demanded the agency produce copies of any such contract, calling it "highly disturbing and unprofessional and unethical" if true.

The allegations add to an acrimonious and unverified pile that has been deposited by both sides in the escalating dispute.

Mr. Beauregard died shortly after a board meeting in January at which three small grants to groups in the Middle East were formally repudiated by the board majority.

Mr. Akhavan succinctly cut down published claims that two of the Palestinian rights-monitoring groups advocated violence against Israel or were run by terrorists.

But it was Ms. Trepanier who gave Tuesday's hearing it's emotional impact. Fingering her dead husband's wedding band that hung on a gold chain around her neck, she tearfully accused the board of harassing Mr. Beauregard for "many, many months."

Outside the committee room, Ms. Trepanier said the harassment "definitely" led to her previously healthy husband's death at age 66. She asked that the committee recommend a contentious performance report penned by three board members be removed from Mr. Beauregard's permanent government file.

She demanded public apologies from the seven members of the board who she says impugned her husband after his death. And she asked that four members who made what she called "defamatory remarks" about Mr. Beauregard be immediately replaced.

She said a full public inquiry is needed "so light can be shed on all the activities and events that took place within the board over the past year."

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