Canada May Protest US Treatment of Tortured Man
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_092006A.shtml
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Canada May Protest US Treatment of Tortured Man
Reuters
Tuesday 19 September 2006
Ottawa - A formal Canadian protest to Washington appeared to be
planned on Tuesday as the result of an official inquiry into the U.S.
deportation in 2002 of a Canadian citizen to Syria, where he was
subsequently tortured.
The government said it agreed with the 23 recommendations by
Justice Dennis O'Connor, who headed the inquiry and concluded that
Maher Arar was tortured in Syria, the country of his birth, after being
arrested in New York on suspicion of involvement with al Qaeda.
"Mr. Arar has been done a tremendous injustice," Prime Minister
Stephen Harper told the House of Commons. "The government has received
this report that has a series of recommendations... The government will
act swiftly based on those recommendations."
Most of the recommendations focus on errors made by the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police, which wrongly told U.S. authorities that Arar
was an Islamic extremist.
But one recommendation was to "register a formal objection with the
governments of the United States and Syria concerning their treatment
of Mr. Arar and Canadian officials involved with his case."
The report also advocated compensating Arar.
"We think those are good and sound recommendations," Public
Security Minister Stockwell Day said of the entire package.
"We don't see a problem with any of those recommendations. We think
it's good advice from Justice O'Connor, and we intend to act on those,"
he told reporters.
O'Connor concluded that the American authorities who handled Arar's
case had treated him in "a most regrettable fashion."
"They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of
his statements that he would be tortured if sent there," he said.
He also said U.S. officials were not candid with the Mounties or
with Canadian diplomats about their intentions or about the process
that led to Arar's removal after his arrest at John F. Kennedy Airport
in New York.
Arar, 36, says he was repeatedly tortured in the year he spent in
Damascus jails. He was freed in 2003.
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asked to comment about the
report, said: "Mr. Arar was deported under our immigration laws. He was
initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists; he was
deported according to our laws."
He said the United States always seeks to assure itself that
anybody it sends out will not be tortured.