Canada faults U.S.in deportation of engineer to Syria (Maher Arar)

                       

       

                                        Canada faults U.S.in deportation of engineer to Syria                  

       

                                        By Ian Austen The New York Times                       

       

                                        TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2006                    

                       

                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                OTTAWA A government commission has exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted both Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled the Canadian authorities before flying Arar in an American government plane to Jordan and then transporting him to Syria.

"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada," Justice Dennis O'Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference Monday.

The report's findings could reverberate through the leadership of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which handled the initial intelligence on Arar.

The report's criticisms and recommendations are aimed primarily at Canada's own government and activities, rather than the U.S. government, which refused to cooperate in the inquiry. But its conclusions about a case that had emerged as one of the most notorious examples of rendition - the transfer of terrorism suspects to other countries for interrogation - draw new attention to the Bush administration's handling of prisoners. And it comes as the White House and Congress contest legislation that would set standards for prisoners' treatment and interrogation.

"The American authorities who handled Mr. Arar's case treated Mr. Arar in a most regrettable fashion," O'Connor wrote in a three-volume report, not all of which was made public. "They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Mr. Arar's case in a less than forthcoming manner."

A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, Charles Miller, and a White House spokesman traveling with President George W. Bush in New York said officials had not seen the report and could not comment.

The Syrian-born Arar was seized Sept. 26, 2002, after he landed at Kennedy Airport in New York on his way home from a holiday in Tunisia. On Oct. 8, he was flown to Jordan and taken overland to Syria, where he says he was held for 10 months in a tiny cell. The report says he was beaten with a shredded electrical cable. He was freed in October 2003, after Syrian officials concluded that he had no connection to terrorism and returned him to Canada.

Arar's case attracted considerable attention in Canada, where critics viewed it as an example of the excesses of the campaign against terror that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. The practice of rendition has caused an outcry from human rights organizations. They have called it "outsourcing torture," because suspects often have been taken to countries where brutal treatment of prisoners is routine.

The commission supports that view, describing a Mounted Police force that was ill-prepared to assume the intelligence duties assigned to it after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Arar, speaking at a news conference with tears in his eyes, praised the findings.

"Today Justice O'Connor has cleared my name and restored my reputation," said Arar, who has been unemployed since his return to Canada in 2003. "I call on the government of Canada to accept the findings of this report and hold these people responsible."

The commission found that Arar first came to police attention Oct. 12, 2001 when he met with Abdullah Almalki, a man already under surveillance by a newly established RCMP intelligence unit known as Project A-O Canada. Arar has said in interviews that the meeting with Almalki at an Ottawa restaurant, and a subsequent 20-minute conversation outside the restaurant, were mostly about finding inexpensive ink jet printer cartridges.

The meeting set off a chain of actions by the police.

Investigators obtained a copy of Arar's rental lease. After finding Almalki listed as an emergency contact, they stepped up their investigation of Arar.

Eventually, the RCMP asked that Arar and his wife be included in a database that alerts U.S. border officers to suspect individuals. In that request, the Canadian police described Arar and his wife as, the report said, "Islamic extremists suspected of being linked to the Al Qaeda movement."

The commission said that all who had testified before it had accepted that this description was false, and noted that, "The potential consequences of labeling someone an Islamic extremist in post-9/11 America are enormous."

According to the inquiry's finding, the RCMP gave the FBI and other American authorities material from Project A-O Canada. The handover violated the force's own guidelines, but was justified on the basis that such rules no longer applied after 2001.

In July 2002, the RCMP learned that Arar and his family were in Tunisia, and concluded that they had left Canada permanently.

On Sept. 26, 2002, the FBI called Project A-O and told the Canadian police that Arar was scheduled to arrive in about one hour from Zurich, Switzerland. At that time, the FBI told the RCMP that it planned to question Arar and then send him back to Switzerland.

The commission said it had not occurred to the Canadian police "that the American authorities were contemplating sending Mr. Arar to Syria."

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs was not told about Arar's detention for almost three days.

Evidence presented to the commission, said Paul Cavalluzzo, its lead counsel, showed that the FBI continued to keep its Canadian counterparts in the dark, even while an American government jet was carrying Arar to Jordan.

Arar arrived in Syria on Oct. 9, 2002, and was imprisoned there until Oct. 5, 2003. It took Canadian officials, however, until Oct. 21, 2002, to locate him in Syria. The commission concluded that Syrian officials at first denied Arar's whereabouts to hide the fact that he was being tortured.