Maher Arar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maher Arar (Arabic: ماهر عرار‎; born 1970 in Syria) is a Canadian software engineer. On September 26, 2002, during a stopover in New York en route from Tunis to Montreal, Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service who may have been acting upon information supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).^[1] Despite carrying a Canadian passport, he was forcibly removed to Syria. Although Canadian (initially) and American officials characterized his removal to Syria as a deportation, there is no record that Arar's removal was ordered by a court or senior Department of Homeland Security official. Therefore, his removal is characterized as administrative removal or extraordinary rendition. Arar was held in solitary confinement in a Syrian prison where he was regularly tortured for almost a year, until his eventual release and return to Canada in October 2003.^[2] Syria concluded that he had no terrorist links.^[3]

Back in Canada, Arar claimed that he had been tortured in Syria and sought to clear his name. Arar's case reached new heights of controversy after 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-Qaida terrorist cell. The RCMP later raided O'Neill's house pursuant to search warrants it had obtained to investigate the leak.^[4] The raid was widely denounced in the media. Moreover, it led to a public inquiry in Canada "into the actions of Canadian officials dealing with the deportation and detention" of Arar. The Inquiry, led by Dennis O'Connor, Associate Chief Justice of Ontario, exonerated Arar, criticized the RCMP's handling of the file and concluded that there was no evidence that he was a security threat to Canada or a member of a terrorist organization. O'Connor also recommended that Canada protest how Arar was treated by the United States. The United States refused to participate in the inquiry and, until January 2007, refused to share its own evidence with Canadian officials. The Bush administration also maintains that Arar's removal to Syria was legal and well within its right.^[5]

Despite the inquiry's exoneration of Arar, the United States has also refused to remove Arar from its watch list. Public Safety Minister 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 their watchlist because of "his personal associations and travel history."^[6] Following Stockwell Day's efforts to remove Mr. Arar from the US watchlist, US Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins chided Canada for questioning who the United States can and cannot allow into their country.^[7] Notwithstanding, Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper has vowed to continue to press the United States on this matter. On January 26, 2007, Mr. Harper rebuked Mr. Wilkins with respect to the Canadian government's efforts to remove him from the US 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."^[8]

In Canada, Mr. 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.^[9] 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.^[10] 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. In question period several Conservative party members, including Day, apparently assumed Arar's guilt, labeling him a terrorist.^[11]

On January 26, 2007, after months of negotiations between the Government and Arar's legal counsel, 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.^[12]

Meanwhile, in the United States, US Senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy has theatened 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."^[13]

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 labeling of Syria as a member of the "axis of evil" and its policy of refraining from talking to Iran and Syria.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 Project A-O Canada and the events leading up to Arar's removal 3 Detention and administrative removal 4 Imprisonment 5 Release and subsequent controversy 6 Official investigations into Arar's case 6.1 Garvie report 6.2 Public inquiry 6.3 RCMP apology 7 US embassy statements 8 US Attorney General Gonzales's response to the Arar inquiry 9 Canada's formal protest to the USA 10 Canadian government apology and settlement 11 References 12 External links 12.1 General 12.2 News coverage 12.3 Commentary

[edit] Early life and career

Maher Arar, born in Syria, moved to Canada with his parents at the age of 17 in 1988 to avoid mandatory military service. In 1991, Arar obtained Canadian citizenship.^[14]

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.^[15]

In December 1997, Arar moved with his family to Ottawa from Montreal.

In 1999, Arar moved again to Boston to do contract work for The MathWorks Inc., requiring a considerable amount of travel within the United States.^[16]

In 2001, Arar returned to Ottawa to start his own consulting company, Simcomms Inc.

At the time of his removal Arar was employed in Ottawa as a telecommunications engineer.

Arar speaks French, English and Arabic.

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

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 4:00pm at the Mango Café, a popular shawarma restaurant in a strip mall on Alta Vista Drive at Bank Street. Arar asked if Almalki knew of a doctor that was still taking patients. Afterwards they walked to a local house of prayer, talking in the rain for 20 minutes. Arar and Almalki got into Arar's car and drove to a Future Shop store, buying a printer cartridge.^[17]

At the time their movements were under close scrutiny by at least three police surveillance teams.^[17]

The surveillance was prompted by Project A-O Canada, an RCMP-led terrorism investigation team based in Ottawa (A Division of the RCMP) 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. 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."^[17]

[edit] Detention and administrative removal

On September 26, 2002, Arar was returning to Montreal from a family vacation in Tunisia. During a stopover at JFK Airport he was detained by United States immigration officials. They claimed that Arar was an associate of Abdullah Almalki, a Syrian-born Ottawa man whom they suspected of having links to the al-Qaeda terror organization, 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 US officials had a Canadian document in their possession was later widely interpreted as evidence of the participation by Canadian authorities in Arar's detention.

Canadian officials apparently told US officials Arar was no longer a resident of Canada. The NY 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." ^[18] He was administratively removed to Syria via Italy and Jordan on October 7 or 8. The Canadian government was notified on October 10, 2002 and Arar was later discovered to be in the Far'Falastin detention center, near Damascus, Syria.

The removal was condemned by the Canadian government and by groups such as Amnesty International. On October 29, 2002, the Canadian foreign affairs department issued a travel advisory strongly cautioning Canadians born in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and Sudan against travel to the United States for any reason. The advisory prompted US conservative Pat Buchanan to describe Canada as "Soviet Canuckistan".^{[citation needed]}

The American ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, later told Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham that all Canadian passport holders would be treated equally. In November 2002, Canadian privacy commissioner George Radwanski recommended that birthplace information be removed from all Canadian passports, in part because of fears of profiling in the United States and other countries. The recommendation was not implemented, but Canadian passport regulations already allowed citizens to request that this field be left blank.

[edit] Imprisonment

Arar was imprisoned in Syria for 10½ months, and states that during this time that he was tortured and forced to sign a false confession which purported that he had trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. The Canadian government did not question the validity of Arar's statements, and accepted them as fact. The Commission of Inquiry agreed that he had been tortured, also without questioning Arar's claims. However, the United States Attorney General has stated that he has seen no evidence other than Arar's own account that Arar was tortured. Arar described being kept in a 3-foot by 6-foot, dark, underground cell where he was beaten and threatened with electrocution. He was further traumatized by overhearing other prisoners being tortured. He had some visits from diplomatic officials, but he did not tell them that he was being tortured until their seventh visit, after which conditions improved for him. His explanation for waiting was that his jailers were in the room during the visits and that they had warned him beforehand not to discuss his treatment or he would be punished.

During this period, Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, conducted an active campaign in Canada to secure his release.

[edit] Release and subsequent controversy

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

After Arar's release, the controversy continued over his treatment by the US 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 Mr. Arar.^[19] 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.

The Canadian New Democratic Party continued to push for a full judicial inquiry. In December 2003, Ambassador Paul Cellucci said that American domestic security would trump respect of Canadian citizenship and that the United States would not change its policy on deportations to third countries.^[20] Prime Minister Paul Martin replied by demanding that Canadian passports be respected.^[21]

In January 2004, Arar announced that he would be suing then American Attorney-General John Ashcroft over his treatment,^[22] but the US 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.

On January 21, 2004, the RCMP searched the residence of Ottawa Citizen journalist Juliet O'Neill as part of a related investigation into leaks from security sources.^[23][24] On November 12, 2004, an Ottawa judge ruled that the RCMP must reveal much of the information that was used to justify the search. The material was sealed by a justice of the peace at the request of the police.

At a summit meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, on January 13, 2004 Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and U.S. President George 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."^[25]

Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, ran unsuccessfully as the NDP candidate in the Ottawa South riding in the 2004 federal election.

TIME magazine chose Arar as Canadian Newsmaker of the Year for 2004.

On February 16, 2006, Brooklyn District Court Judge David Trager dismissed Arar's lawsuit against members of the George W. Bush administration.^[26] Although Trager discounted legal arguments by the defendants, he based his decision on national security grounds, not legal reasons.

On October 18, 2006, Maher 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^[27].

Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, discusses Arar sympathetically in his bestselling 2005 book Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis. Amy Goodman, host of the radio program Democracy Now!, and her brother David Goodman write about Maher Arar in their 2006 book, Static.

[edit] Official investigations into Arar's case

[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] Public inquiry

On February 5, 2004, the Canadian government established a commission of inquiry O'Connor to investigate and report on the actions of 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. The US ambassador at the time of the incident, Paul Cellucci, refused to testify.

On October 27, 2005, 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.

The final report, released on September 18, 2006, categorically states that there is no evidence linking Arar to terrorist activity, that the RCMP passed false information on to US authorities, and that the RCMP leaked untrue information to damage his reputation. The report also confirms that he was tortured while in Syria.^[28]

[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.^[29]

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.^[30] Zaccardelli later resigned as RCMP commissioner because of this case.

[edit] US 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". ^[31]

[edit] US Attorney General Gonzales's response to the Arar inquiry

On September 19, 2006 US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales denied any wrongdoing on the part of the USA in Arar's transportation to Syria.^[32] During a press conference Gonzales said:^[33]

"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 DoJ 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.^[34]

[edit] Canada's formal protest to the USA

During a telephone conversation on October 6, 2006, Harper notified U.S. President George W. 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.^[35] 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."^[36]

[edit] Canadian government apology and settlement

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." Harper also announced that Arar would receive $10.5 million plus legal costs.^[37]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] General

• Maher Arar's official site
• "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.
• "Maher Arar: JFK to Syria"
• 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.

[edit] News coverage

• 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

[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