08-feb-2009 1991.toronto.bomb.plot 2006.toronto.terrorism.case abc.news abdellah.ouzghar abderraouf.jdey arar arar.v..ashcroft.et.al. canada cia government history humanrights law maher people politics rendition syria terror terrorism torture usa war 2003 2006 2007 2009

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maher Arar (born 1970) is a telecommunications engineer with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship who resides in Canada. He is famous for the outcry resulting from his deportation by the canadian government to Syria. Arar has claimed he was tortured while in Syria. His experience has been put forward as an example of the United States government policy of "extraordinary rendition".^[1][2][3][4]

Arar was detained during a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunis. He was held in solitary confinement in the United States for nearly two weeks, questioned, and denied meaningful access to a lawyer. The US government suspected him of being a member of Al Qaeda and deported him, not to Canada, his current home, but to his native Syria, even though its government is known to use torture.^[5] He was detained in Syria for almost a year, during which time he was tortured, according to the findings of the Arar Commission, until his release to Canada.^[6]

The government of Canada ordered a commission of inquiry which concluded that he was tortured.^[7] The commission of inquiry publicly cleared Arar of any links to terrorism, and gave him a C$10.5 million settlement.^[8] The Syrian government reports it knows of no links of Arar to terrorism.

Despite the Canadian court ruling, the United States government has not exonerated Arar and, on the contrary, has made public statements to state their belief that Arar is affiliated with members of organizations they describe as terrorist. As of February 2009, Arar and his family remain on a watchlist. His US lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights are currently pursuing his case, Arar v. Ashcroft, which seeks compensatory damages on Arar’s behalf and also a declaration that the actions of the US government were illegal and violated his constitutional, civil, and international human rights.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Project A-O Canada and the events leading up to Arar's rendition 1.3 Arar's rendition 1.4 U.S. interrogation 1.5 Arar's imprisonment in Syria 1.6 Arar's return to Canada 2 United States lawsuit 3 Canadian government response 3.1 Initial media controversy 3.2 Garvie Report 3.3 Canadian Commission of Inquiry 3.4 RCMP apology 3.5 Canadian government apology and settlement 3.6 Aftermath 4 U.S. government response 4.1 Former U.S. Attorney General Gonzales's response to the Arar inquiry 4.2 Watchlist issue 4.3 U.S. Congressional hearings and testimony 4.4 Dispute over Canadian involvement in his rendition 4.5 Canada's formal protest to the U.S. government 4.6 U.S. embassy statements 4.7 Omar Khadr interrogations 5 Awards and Accolades 6 In print 7 In fiction 8 References 9 External links 9.1 General 9.2 News coverage 9.3 Commentary 9.4 Books

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Maher Arar was born in Syria and moved to Canada with his parents at the age of 17 in 1988 to avoid mandatory military service. In 1991, Arar became a Canadian citizen.^[9]

Arar earned a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from McGill University and a master's degree in telecommunications from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (a branch of the Université du Québec) in Montreal. While studying at McGill University, Arar met Monia Mazigh. Arar and Mazigh married in 1994. Ms. Mazigh has a Ph.D. in finance from McGill. They have two young children: Barâa and Houd.^[10]

In December 1997, Arar moved with his family to Ottawa from Montreal and listed Abdullah Almalki as his "emergency contact" with his landlord.^[11] In 1999, he moved again to Boston to work for The MathWorks Inc., a job that required a considerable amount of travel within the United States.^[12] In 2001, Arar returned to Ottawa to start his own consulting company, Simcomms Inc. At the time of his rendition, Arar was employed in Ottawa as a telecommunications engineer.

[edit] Project A-O Canada and the events leading up to Arar's rendition

After he had moved back to Ottawa, Arar had a meeting with Abdullah Almalki on October 12, 2001. Almalki, an Ottawa engineer, was also born in Syria and had moved to Canada in the same year as Arar. They met at the Mango Café, a popular shawarma restaurant in a strip mall and talked about doctors and bought a print cartridge together.^[13]

At the time their movements were under close scrutiny by at least three police surveillance teams.^[13] The surveillance was prompted by Project A-O Canada, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)-led terrorism investigation team based in Ottawa and a subdivision of Project O Canada which was based in Toronto. Project O Canada was created by the RCMP when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) delegated responsibility for its national security investigation concerning Abdullah Almalki to the RCMP. CSIS had been monitoring Almalki at least since 1998 with respect to his relationship with Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian-born Canadian and alleged senior associate of Osama bin Laden. CSIS was also concerned with Mr. Almalki's electronic components export business that he operated with his wife. Mr. Almalki, however, was purely a person of interest and was not, in fact, the target of the investigation. Nonetheless, Mr. Almalki's meeting with Arar appears to have prompted a wider investigation, with Arar also becoming a "person of interest."^[13]

On October 7, 2002, FBI agent Robert Fuller went to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and showed Canadian teenager Omar Khadr a black-and-white photograph of Arar obtained from the FBI office in Massachusetts, and demanded to know if he recognised him. Khadr initially stated that he did not recognise Arar, but when further pressured by Fuller, confessed he had seen him at a Kabul safehouse run by Abu Musab al-Suri or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This testimony given by Fuller is contradicted by the fact that during the period indicated by Khadr in Fuller's testimony, Maher Arar was known to be in Canada, under surveillance by the RCMP. ^{[14][15][16][17]}

[edit] Arar's rendition

On September 26, 2002, during a stopover in New York City en route from a family vacation in Tunisia to Montreal, Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS was acting upon information supplied by the RCMP.^[18] When it became clear he was going to be deported, Arar requested he be deported to Canada; though he had not visited Syria since his move to Canada, he retained Syrian citizenship as Syria does not permit the renunciation of citizenship. Canadian (initially) and American officials have labelled his transfer to Syria as a deportation, but critics have called the removal an example of rendition for torture by proxy, as Syria's government is infamous for its torture of detainees. Despite the recent public rhetoric, at the time of Arar's deportation, Syria was working closely with the United States on the War on Terror. In November 2003, Cofer Black, then counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department and former director of counterterrorism at the CIA, was quoted as saying "The Syrian government has provided some very useful assistance on al Qaeda in the past." ^[19] In September 2002, the Bush Administration opposed the enactment of the "Syria Accountability Act" citing effectiveness of current sanctions and the ongoing diplomacy in the region. In addition, the administration noted the cooperation and support by Syria in fighting al-Qaida as a reason for its opposition to the "Syria Accountability Act".^[20]

[edit] U.S. interrogation

U.S. officials repeatedly questioned Arar about his connection to certain members of Al Qaeda. His interrogators also claimed that Arar was an associate of Abdullah Almalki, the Syrian-born Ottawa man whom they suspected of having links to Al Qaeda, and they therefore suspected Arar of being an Al Qaeda member himself. When Arar protested that he only had a casual relationship with Almalki, having once worked with Almalki's brother at an Ottawa high-tech firm, the officials produced a copy of Arar's 1997 rental lease which Almalki had co-signed. The fact that U.S. officials had a Canadian document in their possession was later widely interpreted as evidence of the participation by Canadian authorities in Arar's detention.

Mr. Arar's requests for a lawyer were dismissed on the basis that he was not a U.S. citizen, therefore he did not have the right to receive counsel. Despite his denials, he remained in U.S. custody for two weeks and eventually was put on a small jet which first landed in Washington, D.C. and then in Amman, Jordan.

[edit] Arar's imprisonment in Syria

Once in Amman, Arar claims he was blindfolded, shackled and put in a van. “They made me bend my head down in the back seat,” Mr. Arar recalled. “Then these men started beating me. Every time I tried to talk, they beat me."

Arar was transferred to a prison, where he claims he was beaten for several hours and forced to falsely confess that he had attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. “I was willing to do anything to stop the torture,” he says.

Arar described his cell as a three-foot by six-foot “grave” with no light and plenty of rats. During the more than 10 months he was imprisoned and held in solitary confinement, he was beaten regularly with shredded cables.^[21] Through the walls of his cell, Mr. Arar could hear the screams of other prisoners who were also being tortured. The Syrian government shared the results of its investigation with the United States.^[22] Arar believes that his torturers were given a dossier of specific questions by United States interrogators, noting that he was asked identical questions both in the United States and in Syria.^[23]

While he had been imprisoned, Arar's wife Monia Mazigh had been conducting an active campaign in Canada to secure his release. Upon his release in October 2003, Syria announced they could find no terrorist links.^[24] Syrian official Imad Moustapha stated that "We tried to find anything. We couldn’t".

[edit] Arar's return to Canada

Arar was released on October 5, 2003, 374 days after his removal to Syria. He returned to Canada, reuniting with his wife and children.

The couple moved to Kamloops, in British Columbia, where his wife Monia accepted a job as professor at Thompson Rivers University.^[25] The couple later moved back to Ottawa.

Back in Canada, Arar claimed that he had been tortured in Syria and sought to clear his name, embarking on legal challenges both in Canada and in the United States as well as a public education campaign.

[edit] United States lawsuit

In January 2004, Arar announced that he would be suing then-American Attorney-General John Ashcroft over his treatment.^[26]

The Center for Constitutional Rights brought the suit Arar v. Ashcroft against former Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and then-Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, as well as numerous U.S. immigration officials. It charges the defendants violated Arar's constitutional right to due process; his right to choose a country of removal other than one in which he would be tortured, as guaranteed under the Torture Victims Protection Act; and his rights under international law.

The suit charges that Arar's Fifth Amendment due process rights were violated when he was confined without access to an attorney or the court system, both domestically before being rendered, and while detained by the Syrian government, whose actions were complicit with the U.S. Additionally, the Attorney General and INS officials who carried out his deportation also likely violated his right to due process by recklessly subjecting him to torture at the hands of a foreign government that they had every reason to believe would carry out abusive interrogation.

Further, Arar filed a claim under the Torture Victims Protection Act, adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1992, which allows a victim of torture by an individual of a foreign government to bring suit against that actor in U.S. Court. Arar's claim under the Act against Ashcroft and the INS directors is based upon their complicity in bringing about the torture he suffered. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

In the case, Arar is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and a declaration that the actions of the U.S. government were illegal and violated his constitutional, civil, and international human rights.

A year after the case was filed, the U.S. government invoked the rarely-used “State Secrets Privilege” in a motion to dismiss the suit. The government claimed that to go forward in an open court would jeopardize the United States' intelligence, foreign policy, and national security interests. Specifically, the government's invocation of the state secrets privilege asserted that disclosure of “the basis for the rejection of plaintiff’s designation of Canada as the country to which plaintiff wished to be removed”, “the basis for the decision to exclude plaintiff from this country”, and “the considerations involved in the decision to remove him to Syria” would damage national security interests^[27].

On February 16, 2006, Brooklyn District Court Judge David Trager dismissed Arar's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration,^[28] basing his decision on national security grounds.

CCR attorneys have appealed the case to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. On June 30, 2008, the Appeals court upheld the dismissal ^[29].

On August 13, 2008, reports appeared in the press that the U. S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit had agreed to rehear the case, "en banc", on December 9, 2008. ^[30]

[edit] Canadian government response

The rendition of Maher Arar has received much attention and scrutiny in Canada, both in the media and in the government.

[edit] Initial media controversy

Arar's case reached new heights of controversy after reporter Juliet O'Neill wrote an article in the Ottawa Citizen on November 8, 2003, containing information leaked to her from an unknown security source, possibly within the RCMP. The secret documents provided by her source suggested Arar was a trained member of an Al Qaeda terrorist cell. The RCMP later raided O'Neill's house pursuant to sealed search warrants it had obtained to investigate the leak.^[31] The raid was widely denounced in the media.^[who?]

In November 2004, Ontario Superior Court Judge Lynn Ratushny ruled that the sealing of the search warrants was unacceptable, although Justice of the Peace Richard Sculthorpe had given approval after the RCMP invoked the Security of Information Act. Justice Ratushny stated that the sealing of the search violated guarantees of a free press, freedom of expression and the public's right to an open court system. She ordered that a redacted copy be released to the public.^[32] All materials that were seized were subsequently ordered returned to O'Neill after Ontario Superior Court Judge Ratushny struck down Section 4 of the Security of Information Act^[33], ruling that it was "unconstitutionally vague" and broad^[34] and an infringement of freedom of expression. In May 2008, the RCMP closed the investigation, labeled Operation Soya, without concluding who leaked the false information. ^[35]

[edit] Garvie Report

On September 25, 2004, the results of an internal RCMP investigation by RCMP Chief Superintendent Brian Garvie were published. Though the version released to the public was censored, the Garvie Report documented several instances of impropriety by the RCMP in the Arar case. Among its revelations were that the RCMP was responsible for giving American authorities sensitive information on Arar with no attached provisos about how this information might be used. Also, Richard Roy, the RCMP liaison officer with the Department of Foreign Affairs, may have known of the plan of removing Arar to Syria but did not contact his supervisors. Additionally, Deputy RCMP Commissioner Garry Loeppky lobbied hard, in the spring of 2003, to convince his government (then led by Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien) not to claim in a letter to Syria, that it "had no evidence Arar was involved in any terrorist activities" because Arar "remained a person of great interest."

In response to the Garvie Report, Arar said that the report was "just the starting point to find out the truth about what happened to me" and that it "exposes the fact that the government was misleading the public when they said Canada had nothing to do with sending me to Syria."

[edit] Canadian Commission of Inquiry

On February 5, 2004, the Canadian government established the "Commission Of Inquiry Into The Actions of Canadian Officials In Relation to Maher Arar" to investigate and report on the actions of Canadian officials. The United States refused to participate in the inquiry and, until January 2007, refused to share its own evidence with Canadian officials.

On June 14, 2005, Franco Pillarella, Canadian ambassador to Syria at the time of Arar's removal, said that at the time he had no reason to believe Arar had been badly treated, and in general had no reason to conclusively believe that Syria engaged in routine torture. These statements prompted widespread incredulity in the Canadian media, and a former Canadian UN ambassador responded to Pillarella asserting that Syria's human rights abuses were well known and well documented by many sources.

On September 14, 2005, the O'Connor commission concluded public hearings after testimony from 85 witnesses. Maher Arar did not testify before the commission.^[6] The U.S. ambassador at the time of the incident, Paul Cellucci, refused to testify.

On October 27, 2005, Professor Stephen Toope, a fact-finder appointed by the Arar inquiry released a report saying that he believed Arar was tortured in Syria. He said that Arar had recovered well physically but was still suffering from psychological problems caused by his mistreatment, as well as anxiety caused by the Commission of Inquiry process itself.^[36]

On September 18, 2006, the Canadian Commission of Inquiry, led by Dennis O'Connor, Associate Chief Justice of Ontario, issued its report. The final report exonerates Arar and categorically states that there is no evidence linking Arar to terrorist activity, stating “there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada.” The Commission also found no evidence that Canadian officials acquiesced in the U.S. decision to detain and remove Mr. Arar to Syria, but that it is very likely that the U.S. relied on inaccurate and unfair information about Mr. Arar that was provided by Canadian officials. The report also confirms that he was tortured while in Syria.^[36][37][38]

On August 9, 2007, an addendum to the final report containing previously undisclosed portions was released. The final report was released with certain portions blacked out for reasons of national security by the Canadian government. Under the rules for the Inquiry, the decision to release the remaining portions of the final report were to be decided within the Canadian courts. In July 2007, the Federal Court ruled that portions of the previously removed text could be released.^[39]

[edit] RCMP apology

On September 28, 2006, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli issued a carefully worded public apology to Arar and his family during the House of Commons committee on public safety and national security:

Mr. Arar, I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly to you and to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I am for whatever part the actions of the RCMP may have contributed to the terrible injustices that you experienced and the pain that you and your family endured.^[40]

Arar thanked Commissioner Zaccardelli for his apology but lamented the lack of concrete disciplinary action against those individuals whose actions led to his detention and subsequent torture.^[41] Zaccardelli later resigned as RCMP commissioner because of this case.

[edit] Canadian government apology and settlement

On January 26, 2007, after months of negotiations between the Canadian government and Arar's Canadian legal counsel, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to Arar on behalf of the Canadian government and announced that Arar would receive $10.5 million settlement for his ordeal and an additional $1 million for legal costs.^[8]

On January 26, 2007, Harper released a copy of a letter sent to Arar, apologizing "for any role Canadian officials may have played in what happened to Mr. Arar, Monia Mazigh and their family in 2002 and 2003."^[42]

[edit] Aftermath

In Canada, Arar's ordeal has raised numerous questions that have yet to be answered. Canadian authorities have been unable to discover who leaked sensitive government documents to O'Neill. Those who were involved in the case in the RCMP have not been reprimanded by the government for their mistakes. In fact, several have received promotions.^[43]

As of December 2006, the only person held accountable in Canada has been RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, who actually resigned over contradictions in his testimony to the House of Commons Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The contradictions were with respect to what he knew at the time and what he told government ministers.^[44]

Many commentators and Liberal MPs also dog Harper's government with statements made by its members while they were the official opposition in the House of Commons. Several Conservative party members, including Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, apparently assumed Arar's guilt, labeling him a terrorist.^[45][46]

[edit] U.S. government response

The Bush administration continues to maintain that Arar's rendition to Syria was legal and well within its right.^[47] The government has not publicly acknowledged that Arar was tortured in Syria.

[edit] Former U.S. Attorney General Gonzales's response to the Arar inquiry

On September 19, 2006, then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales denied any wrongdoing on the part of the U.S. in Arar's rendition to Syria.^[48] During a press conference Gonzales said:^[49]

"Well, we were not responsible for his removal to Syria, I'm not aware that he was tortured, and I haven't read the Commission report. Mr. Arar was deported under our immigration laws. He was initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists, and he was deported according to our laws. "Some people have characterized his removal as a rendition. That is not what happened here. It was a deportation. And even if it were a rendition, we understand as a government what our obligations are with respect to anyone who is rendered by this government to another country, and that is that we seek to satisfy ourselves that they will not be tortured. And we do that in every case. And if in fact he had been rendered to Syria, we would have sought those same kind of assurances, as we do in every case."

On September 20, 2006, Charles Miller, a Department of Justice spokesman, said Gonzales had merely been trying to clarify that deportations were no longer the responsibility of the Department of Justice, but were now the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security.^[50]

[edit] Watchlist issue

Despite the inquiry's exoneration of Arar, the United States has also refused to remove Arar from its watchlist. Stockwell Day was invited to look at the evidence in the United States' possession in January 2007. In his opinion, the administration is unjustified in continuing to bar Arar from entering the United States. Reportedly, the United States continues to refuse to remove Arar from the watchlist because of "his personal associations and travel history".^[51]

Following Day's efforts to remove Arar from the watchlist, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins chided Canada for questioning whom the United States can and cannot allow into their country.^[52] Notwithstanding, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has vowed to continue to press the United States on this matter. On January 26, 2007, Harper rebuked Wilkins with respect to the Canadian government's efforts to remove him from the U.S. watch list, stating, "Canada has every right to go to bat for one of its citizens when the government believes a Canadian is being unfairly treated."^[53]

On October 20, 2007, The Globe and Mail reported that it had seen classified American documents revealing evidence on which the United States acted: "Maher Arar's denials that he ever went to Afghanistan are contradicted by a man convicted of immigration fraud and a self-confessed mujahedeen instructor who says he spotted him there in the early 1990s...." ^[54] The newspaper stated that the informant, Mohamed Kamal Elzahabi, also faced charges of lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and that "his credibility is very much at issue." It added that, even crediting his description of his acquaintance with Arar, "the encounter appears to have been, at most, fleeting."

[edit] U.S. Congressional hearings and testimony

Meanwhile, in the United States, Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has threatened to hold extensive hearings into Arar's case. Leahy has lambasted the US's removal of Arar to Syria as absurd and outrageous, noting that instead of sending Arar a "couple of hundred miles to Canada and turned over to the Canadian authorities... he was sent thousands of miles away to Syria." Senator Leahy spoke at length on the matter, calling the case "a black mark" on the United States: "We knew damn well, if he went to Canada, he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held. He'd be investigated. We also knew damn well, if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured."^[55]

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales noted that the United States had assurances from Syria that Arar would not be tortured. This was dismissed by Leahy, remarking that the United States got "assurances from a country that we also say, now, we can't talk to them because we can't take their word for anything?" The Senator was alluding to the Bush administration's policy of refraining from talking to Iran and Syria. Syria is on the U.S. State Department's list of states that sponsor terrorism.

On October 18, 2007, Arar spoke via video-link before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, and the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at a hearing that is examining his case and the practice of rendition. In his statement to the committee, he detailed his experiences and expressed his hope that his case will not be repeated. “I now understand how fragile our human rights and freedoms are, and how easily they can be taken from us by the very same governments and institutions that have sworn to protect us. I also know that the only way I will ever be able to move on in my life and have a future is if I can find out why this happened to me, and help prevent it from happening to others.^[56]

Members of Congress took the opportunity to personally apologize to Arar. Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, commented on the United States government’s inaction, saying, “Let me personally give you what our government has not: an apology”. “Let me apologize to you and the Canadian people”, he continued, “for our government's role in a mistake.”^[57] Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican, agreed that lawmakers “should be ashamed” of the case, but defended the practice of rendition, claiming that it has “protected the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of American lives.”^[57]Michigan Democrat John Conyers took the opportunity to challenge rendition, and stated that his “intention” is “for high level administration officials responsible for the Arar decision to come before these panels and tell the American people the truth about what happened.” “This government is sending people to other countries to be tortured,” Conyers said.^[58]

On October 24, 2007 U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, while testifying in Washington before the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, admitted that the US communication with the Canadian government was not handled properly. "We have told the Canadian government we do not think this was handled particularly well in terms of our own relationship and we will try to do better in the future," Rice said while testifying before the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee. ^[59][60]

On June 5, 2008, a joint hearing entitled "U.S. Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Report OIG-08-18: The Removal of a Canadian Citizen to Syria" was held by the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties and the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight^[61]video. A redacted copy of the Department of Homeland Security report was released ^[62]

On June 10, 2008, a hearing about diplomatic assurances was held by the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight. In his opening statement Rep. Bill Delahunt cited the case of Maher Arar and the ambiguousness of assurance received from Syria. It appears that when Mr. Arar was removed, the State Department was not consulted when assurances that Mr. Arar would not be tortured were obtained. The sole witness was John B. Bellinger III, the legal advisor of the U.S. State Department (previously White House Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council). Mr. Bellinger has previously spoken on the Arar case.

In a letter dated June 10, 2008, US Representatives John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, and Bill Delahunt requested of the Attorney General the appointment of a "special counsel to investigate and prosecute any violation of federal criminal laws related to the removal of Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, to Syria."^[63] Responding in a letter to Representatives Conyers, Nadler, and Delahunt, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that he does not believes it warrants a special prosecutor at this time. During the House Committee on the Judiciary oversight hearing Representative Delahunt questioned the Attorney General about his letter and the issue of assurances. When questioned the Attorney General stated that a classified briefing on the assurances from Syria was offered to Rep. Conyers, Nadler, and Delahunt. Rep. Delahunt choose not to attend giving the reason of his concern for inadvertently disclosing classified information in public setting. In addition, the Attorney General stated that "sending [Mr. Arar] to Canada could have posed a danger to [the United States]" and sending "him to Syria was safer given those assurances".^[64]

[edit] Dispute over Canadian involvement in his rendition

After Arar's release, the controversy continued over his treatment by the U.S. and over the role that Canadian police and government officials may have played in his removal and interrogation. The United States claimed that the RCMP had provided them with a list of suspicious persons that included Arar.^[65] It was also discovered that Canadian consular officials knew that Arar was in custody in the United States but did not believe that he would be removed. The Canadian government maintains that the decision to remove Arar to Syria was made by American officials alone.

Canadian officials apparently told U.S. officials Arar was no longer a resident of Canada. The New York Times reported, "In July 2002, the Mounted Police learned that Mr. Arar and his family were in Tunisia, and incorrectly concluded that they had left Canada permanently." ^[66]

At a summit meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, on January 13, 2004, former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and U.S. President George W. Bush reached an agreement, sometimes referred to as the Monterrey Accord, which obliged the United States to notify Canada before deporting a Canadian citizen to a third country. However, according to a news story in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Stephen Yale-Loehr, lawyer and adjunct professor of immigration and asylum law at Cornell University told the Arar inquiry "the Canada-U.S. agreement struck... to prevent a recurrence of the Arar affair is ineffective and legally unenforceable."^[67]

In 2007, as part of the investigation into government foreknowledge, it was revealed that CSIS chief Jack Hooper had sent a memo on October 10, 2002 that included the reference "I think the United States would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him", which was the first conclusive evidence that CSIS, and not just the RCMP, knew that a Canadian was going to be tortured at the request of the United States.^[68] A year later, Hooper contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to tell them that it was not in Canada's interests to demand that the United States return Maher Arar.^[69]

In September,2008, former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli, now with Interpol, said that the White House "threw away the rule book" after 9/11 and that the RCMP was led to believe that Arar would be sent back to Canada from New York.[3]Zaccardelli told the CBC that U.S. authorities said that they didn't have enough evidence to lay charges against Arar and wanted to know whether Arar would be arrested if he returned to Canada. "The discussion was: 'If we let him go and he comes to Canada, can you arrest him or detain him?' And we keep reaffirming, 'No we can't'," Zaccardelli said.

The RCMP set up surveillance team to watch Arar upon his return: "We are waiting in Montreal for the plane to arrive with Mr. Arar getting off the plane. The plane arrives. Mr. Arar never got off." Zaccardelli said.^[70]

[edit] Canada's formal protest to the U.S. government

During a telephone conversation on October 6, 2006, Harper notified President Bush that Canada intended to lodge a formal protest over U.S. treatment of Arar. The notification was later followed by a letter of protest sent from Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter MacKay to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.^[71] Harper told reporters that Canada wants "the United States government [to] come clean with its version of events, to acknowledge... the deficiencies and inappropriate conduct that occurred in this case, particularly vis-à-vis its relationship with the Canadian government." In particular, Canada wants United States assurances, said Harper, that "these kinds of incidents will not be repeated in the future."^[72]

[edit] U.S. embassy statements

Robert H. Tuttle, the US ambassador to Britain told the BBC on December 22, 2005:

"I don't think there is any evidence that there have been any renditions carried out in the country of Syria. There is no evidence of that. And I think we have to take what the secretary Condoleezza Rice says at face value. It is something very important, it is done very carefully and she has said we do not authorise, condone torture in any way, shape or form."

This statement was amended the very next day by a U.S. embassy spokeswoman who stated that the embassy

"recognised that there had been a media report of a rendition to Syria but reiterated that the United States is not in a position to comment on specific allegations of intelligence activities that appear in the press". ^[73]

[edit] Omar Khadr interrogations

On 19 January 2009, while testifying at the Guantanamo military commission for accused terrorist Omar Khadr, FBI agent Robert Fuller testified that Khadr had identified Maher Arar as among the al-Qaeda militants he met while in Afghanistan. Upon cross-examination the following day, Mr. Fuller clarified his statement saying that at first Mr. Khadr could not identify Mr. Arar. Then after giving him a couple minutes Khadr "stated he felt he had seen" Maher Arar ^[74]. The validity of Omar Khadr's possible sighting has been seriously questioned due to the time frame of the alleged sighting which was sometime during September or October 2001. Mr. Arar was known to be in North America during this time frame. ^[75] Khadr's lawyer told Canadian media that Khadr, claiming to be under torture at Bagram Theater Internment Facility, simply told his captors whatever he thought they wanted to hear. Lawyers and advocates familiar with the case immediately dismissed the allegations.^[76][77]

Information gathered from the United States interrogation of Omar Khadr conflicts with the information gathered previously from the RCMP. Mr. Michael Edelson stated in public testimony given during the Arar Inquiry that RCMP officials from Project AO Canada had shown pictures of Mr. Arar to Mr. Khadr in either July or August 2002 and that Mr. Khadr denied ever seeing Maher Arar. ^[78]

[edit] Awards and Accolades

TIME magazine chose Arar as "Canadian Newsmaker of the Year" for 2004. On October 18, 2006, Arar and the Center for Constitutional Rights were honoured with the Institute for Policy Studies Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award, in recognition of the struggle to clear his name and draw attention to American abuses of human rights in dealing with terrorist suspects.^[79] In April 2007, TIME magazine named Arar to the TIME 100, its annual listing of 100 influential people in the world.^[80] Arar's entry, at No. 58 in the Heroes & Pioneers category, was written by US Senator Patrick Leahy and says his case "stands as a sad example of how we have been too willing to sacrifice our core principles to overarching government power in the name of security, when doing so only undermines the principles we stand for and makes us less safe." The US would not allow him entry to attend Time's recognition event.^[81]

[edit] In print

The case of Maher Arar has been referenced in several books. Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, discusses Arar sympathetically in his bestselling 2005 book Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (ISBN 978-0743285018). Amy Goodman, host of the radio program Democracy Now!, and her brother David Goodman write about Arar in their 2006 book, Static (ISBN 978-1401309145). Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror, by Kerry Pither (ISBN 978-0670068531), discusses the investigations of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin, and Maher Arar by Canadian Security forces, and includes a foreword by Maher Arar. Ms. Pither lays out how similar the ordeals of each four men are, all imprisoned by Syria, torured and questioned, and released without charge. The Arar case was also discussed in Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (ISBN 978-0385526395 in hardcover, ISBN 978-1921372506 in softcover).

Hope & Despair. My Struggle to Free My Husband, Maher Arar (ISBN 978-0771057588), published November 4, 2008, tells of Monia Mazigh's struggle to free her husband Maher Arar.

[edit] In fiction

• The movie Rendition is loosely based on Arar.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] General

• Maher Arar's official site
• Video of interview with Maher Arar
• "Maher Arar: Timeline", CBC, updated September 28, 2006
• Arar Commission official site
• Apology Statement Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, September 26, 2007
• "The Horrors of Extraordinary Rendition", A transcript of Maher Arar's Letelier-Moffitt International Human Rights Award acceptance speech, detailing the events.
• Legal Filings in Maher Arar's lawsuit against John Ashcroft From the Center for Constitutional Rights
• Interview with Arar on the Disappeared In America website
• Falsehoods led to man's torture, report says
• Transcript and video of Maher Arar's acceptance speech for the Letelier-Moffitt International Human Rights Award.
• [4]

[edit] News coverage

Wikinews has related news: U.S. flight logs back Maher Arar's claims, The New York Times finds

Wikinews has related news: Canadian government apologizes to deportation victim Arar

• Explanation offered for his Detention
• CBC News early report
• CBC News report
• CBC - Maher Arar reported freed
• Canada starts an investigation
• BBC - Interview with Robert Baer about the role of the CIA in the Middle East
• PBS Fresh Air - Interview of Maher Arar concerning his case

[edit] Commentary

• The Arar Report: The US Should Follow Canada's Lead, JURIST, September 27, 2006
• Kafka in Canada: The Hounding of Maher Arar, Candide's Notebooks, January 26, 2007
• Author Kerry Pither's blog
• Editorial - The Unfinished Case of Maher Arar, New York Times, February 18, 2009

[edit] Books

• Carter, Jimmy (2005). Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-9236-8. http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?isbn=0743292367&cid=OTC-GoogleBook0306. 
• Goodman, Amy; Goodman, David (2007). Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back. Hyperion. ISBN 9781401309145. http://www.hyperionbooks.com/titlepage.asp?ISBN=1401309143&SUBJECT=Current%20Events. 
• Pither, Kerry (2008). Dark Days: The Story of Four Canadians Tortured in the Name of Fighting Terror. Viking Canada. ISBN 9780670068531. http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670068531,00.html. 
• Mayer, Jane (2008). The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-52639-5. http://doubleday.com/2008/07/23/the-dark-side-by-jane-mayer/. 
• Mazigh, Mona (2008). Hope and Despair: My Struggle to Free My Husband, Maher Arar. McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-5758-8. http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771057588. 
• Perry, John (2005). TORTURE: Religious Ethics and National Security. Novalis Press. ISBN 978-1570756078. http://store.novalis.ca/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=540. 

v • d • e Canadians allegedly associated with terrorism   Non-War on Terror FLQ Jacques Lanctôt, Louise Lanctôt, Marc Carbonneau, Yves Langlois, Jacques Cossette-Trudel, Bernard Lortie Air India Bombing Ripudaman Singh Malik, Ajaib Singh Bagri, Talwinder Singh Parmar, Inderjit Singh Reyat, Surjan Singh Gill, Hardial Singh Johal, Manmohan Singh, Daljit Sandhu Squamish Five Ann Hansen, Brent Taylor, Juliet Caroline Belmas, Doug Stewart, Gerry Hannah IRA Sean John McCann, Charles Dennis Finnegan, Bernard McReynolds, William James Carson, James Murdock, Denis Leyne Tamil Tigers Manickavasagam Suresh, Prapaharan Thambithurai, Muralitharan Nadarajah, Loganathan Sabanayagam, Kumaravelu Vignarajah, Sathajhan Sarachandran Hamas Jamal Akal° Hezbollah Ali Adham Amhaz, Fauzi Ayub°, Mohammed Hassan Dbouk, Mohammed al-Husseini, Omar el Sayed, Hani al-Sayegh PFLP Mahmoud Mohammad PKK Hanan Ahmed Osman, Aynur Saygili 1991 Toronto bomb plot Glenn Neville Ford, Khidr Ali Mujahideen-e Khalq Canada and the MEK, Robab Farahi-Mahdavieh, Effat Nejati, Mahnaz Samadi Other Michelle Duclos°, Thomas Bernard Brighamǂ, Gazi Ibrihim Abu Mezer, Shaun Going, Hassan Diab   War on Terror Millennium Plot Ahmed Ressam†, Samir Ait Mohamed, Fateh Kamel°, Ahcene Zemiri†, Mokhtar Haouari, Abousfian Abdelrazik, Abdel Ghani al-Jihad Mahmoud Jaballah, Essam Marzouk†, Mohammad Mahjoub al-Qaeda Mubarak al-Duri, Mohammed† and Abdul Rahman Jabarahǂ, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Amer el-Maati, Abdel Hakim Tizegha, Raed Hijazi, Niser bin Muhammad Nasar Nawar Khadr family Ahmed Said Khadrǂ and Maha Elsamnah, Zaynab, Abdullah†, Abdurahman°, Omar†, Abdulkareem Afghan Insurgency Ahmed Said Khadrǂ, Mohammed Warsame Iraqi Insurgency Saeed and Masoud Rasoul, Abu Abdul Rahman, Hassan Farhat, Aumar Alsorani Chechnya Rudwan Khalil Abubakerǂ Groupe Islamique Armé Mohamed Harkat, Karim Said Atmani°, Mourad Ikhlef Toronto 18 Steven Chand, Shareef Abdelhaleem, Jahmaal James, Mohammed Dirie, Fahim Ahmad, Asad Ansari, Zakaria Amara, Amin Durrani, Saad Khalid, Saad Gaya, a young offender with unreleased name Held at Guantanamo Bay Omar Khadr, Abdurahman Khadr°, Raouf Hannachi, Djamel Ameziane, Ahcene Zemiri, Mohamedou Ould Slahi Other Abderraouf Jdey, Faker Boussora, Bashir Makhtal†, Kassem Daher°, Mustafa Krer, Momin Khawaja, Abdullahi Afrahǂ, Amr Hamedǂ, Huseyincan Celil†, Idriss†, Hassan Almrei, Adil Charkaoui, Assem Hammoud, Moussa Mohamed Kalifa, Said Namouh, Mohammad Ashraf Siddiqui Wrongly Accused Abdullah Almalki, Maher Arar, Arwad al-Boushi, Ahmad Abou El-Maati, Muayyed Nureddin, Abdellah Ouzghar, Liban Hussein, Qayyum Jamal, Yasim Mohamed, Ahmad Ghany, three young offenders with unreleased names, Sohail Qureshi, Amine Mezbar, 24 Pakistani immigrants, Nabil al-Marabh † denotes currently imprisoned, ° denotes legal release after serving a sentence, ǂ denotes deceased subjects