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Toronto Star Editorial – September 16, 2005
Arar case exposes inept security web
Canada has budgeted $8 billion to bolster national security since 9/11. We have toughened anti-terror laws to the point where judges worry about civil liberties. We have beefed up the military, police and spy agencies engaged in counter-terror operations. We have tightened the borders. And we swap far more data with allies.
Yet for all that, Canadians who have followed Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor's revelatory probe of the Maher Arar case have reason to wonder whether the nation's security is in competent hands.
From former prime minister Jean Chrétien's office on down through the foreign affairs ministry, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Arar case exposed a degree of official recklessness, complacency and ineptitude in the handling of one man's security file that should be of concern to every citizen. What happened to Arar was indefensible.
Justice O'Connor heard final testimony this week, and hopes to deliver a report by March 31. Much evidence was presented behind closed doors. So O'Connor alone can determine the exact role Canadian officials played in Arar's arrest in New York on Sept. 26, 2002, as he was travelling to Canada from Tunisia, and his abrupt deportation to his native Syria where he was held for a year and physically abused. Only O'Connor can gauge the attitudes that motivated federal officials. And suggest remedies. That said, no one comes off looking good in this case.
ཉ Jean Chrétien. Arar, a dual Canadian-Syrian, was held for nine months before a hesitant Chrétien put on serious diplomatic heat by writing personally to Syrian leader Bashar Assad and demanding that Arar be charged with a crime, or set free. Soon Arar was on his way home. Would a forceful demand, earlier, have spared Arar much grief?
ཉ The Mounties. They may have sealed Arar's fate by recklessly passing information to U.S. officials, without any caveats, that linked Arar to another Canadian, Abdullah Almalki, who was the target of an RCMP terrorism probe. Almalki would be arrested in Syria in 2002. The RCMP move put Arar on Washington's Al Qaeda watch list. Other Canadians jailed in Syria include Ahmed Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin. All are now back here. None has been charged with a crime.
ཉ Canada's diplomats. At best, there was poor coordination between Ottawa officials, the Mounties and CSIS. Canadian officials in New York were warned Arar was in trouble yet believed he'd be sent home. And the Mounties knew, or should have known, that he could be shuffled to Syria to be pumped for information. And our former ambassador in Damascus, Franco Pillarella, and his staff seemed eager to glean whatever the Syrians got from Arar, and complacent about whether he was mistreated.
ཉ Canada's spies. Somehow, the Syrians developed the impression that CSIS didn't want Arar back. Certainly, top CSIS officials seemed to view Arar more as a problem than as a citizen who needed rescuing. They worried Chrétien might be embarrassed if he went to bat for Arar and he turned out to be a bad actor. They saw Arar as a "hot potato" who could strain Canada-U.S. relations if he were repatriated. And they fretted that it might be harder to deport terror suspects to places like Syria if Arar came home, as he did, with tales of torture.
Federal officials insist they acted in "good faith," were shocked by Washington's actions and worked hard to free Arar. Even so, this is a dismal picture. Canadians deserve better from those who wield sweeping powers. How much better, is something Justice O'Connor must now ponder.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1126821022367&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
New York Times - September 17, 2005
Evidence grows that Canada aided in having
terrorism suspects interrogated in Syria
By Clifford Krauss
OTTAWA, Sept. 14 - A judicial inquiry here is turning up evidence that Canadian police and intelligence agencies solicited and used information that was obtained from at least four Canadian citizens under torture by foreign intelligence agencies.
The main purpose of the inquiry is to explore the Canadian role in the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who has emerged as perhaps the most infamous example of the United States policy of rendition, the transfer of terrorism suspects to other nations for interrogations.
Mr. Arar was detained while changing planes in New York and was flown in an American government plane to Jordan and Syria. But three other Canadians whose cases are now coming to light were apparently handled entirely by Canadian authorities.
As part of their investigation of suspected operations of Al Qaeda in Toronto and Ottawa, according to government documents and public testimony by officials, Canadian security agents sought notes from, or suggested questions for, interrogations that Syrian and Egyptian intelligence agencies conducted between 2001 and 2004 with the three other Canadians, who say they were tortured.
The information-sharing came at a time when Ottawa was trying to tighten security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Leading rights campaigners say they are dismayed by evidence of what they characterize as a Canadian policy of condoning the torture of citizens while pressing for human rights in other countries.
"The evidence raises all sorts of troubling questions," said Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. "The concern is, do we have a Canadian version of the notorious American practice of extraordinary rendition?"
Mr. Neve and other campaigners and opposition leaders are calling on Prime Minister Paul Martin to broaden the Arar inquiry, but so far the government has resisted the request.
"There is no government policy of subcontracting torture, as has been alleged," said Alex Swann, spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, who oversees security operations. But he added: "Some of these issues are going to be examined. When people make allegations like this, of course we're concerned."
A State Department human rights report released earlier this year identified Egypt and Syria among a number of countries that practice torture in their prisons.
Documentary evidence and some comments by government officials at the Arar inquiry support the claims of two of the Canadians that their Syrian and Egyptian interrogators were fed questions by Canadian officials. The two men, interviewed separately, said several interrogators told them they were using information given to them by Canadian officials. Both men, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad Abou el-Maati, had for years been identified by the Canadian police as primary terrorism suspects, because of their backgrounds of doing aid work or fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The third reported victim, Muayyed Nureddin, has said Syrian interrogators asked him the same questions that Canadian agents asked him at the Toronto airport during his departure…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/international/americas/17canada.html
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