Maher Arar

EARLY LIFE AND CAREER

Arar, who holds both Canadian and Syrian Citizenship , moved to Canada at the age of 17 in 1988 to avoid mandatory military service.

Arar earned a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering from McGill University and a Master's Degree from the Institut National De La Recherche Scientifique (a branch of the Université Du Québec ) in Montreal . At the time of his deportation Arar was employed in Ottawa as a Telecommunications engineer. He is married to Monia Mazigh , who has a Ph.D. in Finance from McGill. They have two young children: Barâa and Houd.

DETENTION AND DEPORTATION

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.

Despite holding a valid Canadian passport, Arar was held without access to consular services, without legal representation and without being allowed to contact his family. His Deportation to Syria on October 7 or 8 is believed to be part of the unofficial US policy of Extraordinary Rendition whereby terrorism suspects are sent to countries where torture is practised. 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 deportation (along with the presumed Racial Profiling ) 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 ".

The American ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci , later told Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham that all Canadian passport holders would be treated equally. However, incidents of alleged racial profiling continue to be reported. 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.

IMPRISONMENT

Arar was imprisoned in Syria for over a year, during which time he was Tortured and forced to sign a false confession which purported that he had trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan . He says that he was kept in a small, dark, underground cell, beaten and threatened with electrocution. 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.

In Canada, the New Democratic Party (NDP) pressured the government to do more to secure his return to Canada. The London -based Syrian Human Rights Committee (considered a credible source of information by Amnesty International) reported at this time that Arar was severely Torture d after being imprisoned, and continued to receive physical abuse from time to time. The Syrian ambassador to Canada denied this.

Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh conducted a visible and active campaign in Canada to secure his release.

RELEASE AND SUBSEQUENT CONTROVERSY

Arar was released on October 5 , 2003 , 374 days after his deportation 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 deportation and interrogation. The United States claimed that the RCMP had provided them with a list of suspicious persons that included Mr. Arar. {Link without Title} 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 deported. The Canadian government maintains that the decision to deport Arar to Jordan was made by American officials alone.

The Canadian NDP continued to push for a full judicial inquiry. Mr. Arar examined starting legal action against the United States, Jordan, and/or Syria. In Paul Martin replied by demanding that Canadian passports be respected. {Link without Title}

In in a motion to dismiss the suit. The government claims that to go forward in an open court would jeopardize the United States' intelligence, foreign policy, and national security interests.

On , 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."
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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.
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Although Trager discounted legal arguments by the defendants, he based his decision on National Security grounds, not legal reasons.

OFFICIAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO ARAR'S CASE

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 deporting 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 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."

Public inquiry

On February 5, 2004, the Canadian government established a commission of inquiry under Dennis O'Connor, Associate Chief Justice of Ontario to investigate and report on the actions of Canadian officials. {Link without Title}

On June 14 2005 , Franco Pillarella , Canadian ambassador to Syria at the time of Arar's deportation, 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 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.

US DENIALS

Robert H. Tuttle , the US ambassador to Britain told the BBC :

"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 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."

Information About

Maher Arar