Canada’s PM Apologizes to Citizen Deported to Syria and Tortured
Jan 29th, 2007 • Posted in: NewsOTTAWA
Canada’s prime minister last week apologized to a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was deported to Syria as a suspected terrorist and tortured.
Prime minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology to Maher Arar for Canada’s role in the incident and said Arar will receive $8.9 million, the largest compensation package for an individual in Canadian history, according to the CanWest News Service.
The Toronto-based Globe & Mail reports that Canada intends to enact reforms based on the outcome of a judicial inquiry, which determined that Canadian law enforcement authorities provided faulty information to the U.S. immigration officials who had detained Arar at a New York airport.
Arar was deported to Syria, leading to accusations that the United States and Canada engaged in “torture by proxy,” extracting information from terror suspects by sending them to countries where they have reason to assume the suspects will be tortured.
The circumstances surrounding Arar’s rendition were examined in a two-year public inquiry led by a prominent Canadian jurist, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. The inquiry’s final report urged the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to make policy changes on information-sharing procedures
RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli resigned in the wake of the commission’s investigation.
In the aftermath of the case, the Canadian government repeatedly has demanded a similar apology from U.S. authorities and that Arar be removed from U.S. watch lists.
The United States has refused, insisting that it has good reason to keep Arar on a watch list, though officials will not provide specifics, reports the Toronto Star.
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