It's been slightly more then four years since Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was arrested by American security forces for suspicion of terrorist activity on the advice of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The American's deported Mr. Arar to Syria, his country of birth, where he spent a year in jail being tortured for information about his non-existent ties with al-Qaeda.
This year Justice Dennis O'Connor, of the Canadian judiciary, led a commission of inquiry investigating how it was possible that an innocent man could have ended up being forced by Syrian torturers to confess to crimes he didn't commit. Those sections of the Mr. O'Connor's findings that the government has allowed to be released, parts being suppressed for reasons of "National Security", contained two very damning accusations.
The first was that the information the RCMP passed to American intelligence forces was not only false, but that it had never been properly vetted for accuracy before being handed over. The second was that before and after the time Mr. Arar was imprisoned Canadian officials "leaked" information to the press damaging to his reputation in order to cover their own asses.
The fallout from this report has started to be felt by the RCMP, Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli has resigned from the force, and Mr. O'Connor will be releasing a second report this coming week which will contain suggestions for increasing oversight of the force's activities.
Although there had been rumours of pressure on Mr. Zaccardelli to resign from the force this past fall, the axe finally fell this week when he decided to change the testimony he had given previously to a House of Commons committee investigating the incident. Back in the fall he had testified that the RCMP had discovered their mistake about Mr. Arar and had tried to correct the situation.
This week however he informed the same committee that he actually had no knowledge of whether such an attempt had taken place or not. He has been quoted as saying the O'Connor commission was causing events to take on a life of their own, leading one to suspect that there is information in the report that contradicts his earlier testimony. Perhaps it's part of what is still being suppressed, or that next week's list of recommendations will contradict him.
Article comments
1 - Lawrence
Mr. Arar was tagged by RCMP because he had a known relationship with another person suspected of being in Canada as an Islamic 5th collumnist.
Mr. Arar also mantains his Syrian citizenship and I personally regret that he was and has been allowed into my country because, according to the tenents of his religion at the end of the day, he believes that the rest of us are all infidels and unworthy of recognition or existance.
Mr. Arar has offered no physical proof by means of scars that he was tortured by a what is a totally Islamic society and we have only his word for that.
Mr. Arar has made no legal challange to the Americans or to the government of Syria = only against the liberal politically corect suckers that are found right here in Canada.
What if Mr. Arar ends up to be the most successful terrorest of all who moved against Canada by his reducing our ability to investigate persons who might be a threat to our way of life.
Arar is exactly like George Bush in so much as you allege that someone has greatly harmed you so you then directly attack the wrong country.
George Bush lied because he wanted to controll Iraq oil and Arar may be lying simpily because he wants Canadian taxpayer's money.
$400 million or even $37 million would pay for a lot hatred even if spent within Canada, wouldn't it?
What if Arar was not being tortured by Syria but that he was being trained in Syria to neutrilize our secuirty services agianst furture radical islamists?
I say, pay Mr. Arar his lost wages, say we're sorry, fire those in the RCMP who you can prove knowingly lied to us and get this issue over with.
Radical islam has said that it is at war with us and Arar is realy a victim of that war between the UNITED STATES and radical islam ... he is not a true victim of any Canadian policy that we know of.
So I say screw off Mr. Arar because you should be blaming yourself and those others and you are realy just blaming me!
Lawrence
2 - ken
There is now a further inquiry into the cases of three other Canadians: Abdul Almalki, Muayyed Nurredin, and El Maati. All were also imprisoned and tortured in the same Syrian interrogation center as Arar. All are now back in Canada with no charges ever having been laid against any of them. All three seem to be have been imprisoned as a consequence of information being supplied by Canadian authorities. These citizens were not rendered but it seems Canadian intelligence authorities took advantage of their visits to SYria to have them incarcerated and questioned. They even sent questions and shared information as they had done in the Arar case. Even in the Arar case although the US did the rendering, Canadian authorities made no attempt to stop it and made use of it to ask their own questions in SYria.