Maher Arar report concludes in his favor
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Maher Arar report concludes in his favor
Submitted by Khalid on Mon, 2006/09/18 - 22:36The public inquiry into Maher Arar's case is finally out.
Maher Arar is a Canadian Syrian engineer. After spending a vacation in Tunisia (where his wife is from), he was travelling from Tunisia to Zurich to New York to Canada on Sept 26, 2002. On his stop in New York he was detained by US authorities and taken to Syria, via Jordan. There he was interrogated and tortured for more than a year, and then freed with no charges.
An inquiry was held to investigate the role of Canadian authorities, in his being detained by the Americans and being sent to Syria.
The findings are overwhelmingly in his favor:
- Maher Arar is not linked to the 9/11 militants.
- He was tortured in Syria.
- Canadian agencies wrongly accepted information from Syrian sources about Arar after his detention, without determining whether it might have been extracted using torture.
- In order to protect themselves and portray Arar in an unflattering light, Canadian officials leaked inaccurate details about Arar to news media.
- Officials from the RCMP gave a sanitized summary of the Arar case to top government officials in order to cover up the RCMP mistake.
Resources
- Wikipedia page on Maher Arar.
- The Arar commission web site.
- CBC In Depth on Maher Arar.
- BBC article.
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Alberto Gonzalez on Maher Arar's case
Alberto Gonzalez is trying to spin Maher Arar's case by saying that his removal to Syria was an 'immigration deportation' and not 'extraordinary rendition'.
This is completely wrong. Since deportation has to be to the country where the flight originated from (Zurich, Switzerland in this case), or the country of passport (Canada). Syria is neither of these. Moreover, Arar was first sent to Jordan then to Syria.
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Khalid Baheyeldin
Arar report raises questions about past RCMP follies
The Canadian Press has an article on how Arar's report criticism of RCMP's behavior raises questions on their past misdeeds as well.
Anytime you have people with authority and secrecy, there is bound to be negligence or abuse, and effects can be disastrous for those wrongly targeted, like Arar.
There has to be independant oversight for everyone in power everywhere.
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Khalid Baheyeldin
US Congress apologizes to Maher Arar
The US Congress has issued an apology to Maher Arar.
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Khalid Baheyeldin
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