Innocent Man Rendered to Syria, Held and Tortured for One Year (Blame Canada?)

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Closing (well, except for the well-deserved lawsuits I presume) another dark chapter in the war on terror, Canadian citizen Maher Arar has been completely cleared by a Canadian judicial commission. In a 822-page report, the commission, lead by Justice Dennis O’Connor, ripped the Mounties apart for giving U.S. authorities erroneous and inflammatory “evidence” against Arar, which led to his being detained during a stopover in JFK airport, rendered to Syria, where he was held and tortured for one year.

And let’s be clear what we mean by torture here. This isn’t just sleep deprivation. This is a Canadian computer consultant returning from a family vacation who, with no ability to access the “evidence” against him, gets bundled off to Syria and beaten with electrical cables.

Arar, a 31-year-old computer consultant and Canadian citizen, was en route from Zurich to Montreal to attend to business following a family vacation in Tunisia, according to a lawsuit he filed against U.S. officials in 2004. He was standing in line waiting to pass immigration inspection when an immigration officer asked him to step aside to answer some questions.

As FBI agents, immigration officials and NYPD officers questioned Arar, he asked to consult an attorney. U.S. officials told Arar that only U.S. citizens had the right to a lawyer and locked him up in the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City, where he endured more interrogation about his friends, the mosques he attended, his letters and e-mails. U.S. officials then demanded that he “voluntarily” agree to be sent to Syria, where he was born, instead of home to Canada (Arar holds dual citizenship). Arar refused, according to Amnesty International, explaining that he was afraid he would be tortured in Syria for not completing his military service. After more than a week in detention, U.S. authorities determined that Arar was “inadmissible” to the United States based on secret evidence and notified him that he would be deported to Syria.

They took him to New Jersey in the middle of the night and loaded him onto a small plane that stopped in Washington, D.C., and then Rome before proceeding to Jordan. Local authorities in Jordan chained and beat Arar, bundled him in a van and drove him across the border to Syria, where Arar was beaten with electrical cables, interrogated about his acquaintances and beliefs, and kept in a tiny cell for months at a time.

The full O’Connor report is not available (due to, you guessed it, security concerns), but news reports indicate that basically after 9/11 the RCMP not only saw terrorists behind every tree but then passed on raw intelligence that had not been analyzed for accuracy to the even more hot-headed U.S. intelligence forces. Via the Globe and Mail:

“The Mounties, the report continues, should have flagged the material as being from unproven sources and should have taken precautions to make sure it was not used in U.S. deportation proceedings…

U.S. officials refused to testify at the Canadian inquiry. But the report says it “is very likely” they relied on the faulty RCMP intelligence when they decided to send Mr. Arar to Syria, the country of his birth, rather than home to Canada.

“The RCMP provided American authorities with information about Mr. Arar which was inaccurate, portrayed him in an unfair fashion and overstated his importance to the investigation,” the report says. “The RCMP had no basis for this description, which had the potential to create serious consequences for Mr. Arar in light of American attitudes and practices” at that time, the report says.

The Mounties also erroneously told the Americans Mr. Arar was in the Washington area on Sept. 11, 2001, when, in fact, he was in San Diego.

When Arar got back, the Mounties mounted a smear campaign against him…Boy, this all sounds so familiar.

The O’Connor report also calls for the further independent investigation of the cases of three other Canadian Muslim men—Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muyyed Nurredin —who were likewise rendered and claim to have been tortured.

These are just some of the cases we know about. God knows how many we don’t. McCain, Graham, Warner, and Powell (and now George Shultz!) are all absolutely correct, when we indulge in barbarous behavoir, we can expect more of the same. We may be on the receiving end of some no matter how well we act, but that’s not the point. The point is what kind of example do we want to set? To other nations and peoples, and to our own children.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate