Officials in Canada say they have confirmed the identities of four Indian nationals whose frozen bodies were found in Manitoba near the Canada-United States border last week.

Two lawsuits pitting Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler against a former intelligence czar threaten to expose highly sensitive US government secrets, prompting Washington.

The sanctions, which freezes their assets and bars their travel to Canada, “target individuals who are, in the opinion of the government of Canada, responsible for or complicit in the extrajudicial killing of journalist.

Ottawa had given the long-detained democracy advocate and Nobel laureate the rare honour in 2007. But her international reputation has become tarnished by her refusal to call out the atrocities by her nation's.