Canada reaches 10 million dollar settlements with Arar

No doubt there will be a government apology as well. Rumoured settlements were much higher. The US settlement so far is to leave Arar on US no fly list and also no doubt in the near future it will throw out Arar's pending appeal of his case against the US on national security grounds as it did in the first round. Meanwhile the EU has issued a report suggesting that the EU issue an apology and consider financial compensation for Arar. Only the US refuses to admit any wrongdoing and continues to suggest Arar is a terrorist. Leahy needs to bring Gonzales and Chertoff back on the carpet. What is presumptuous one should tell David Wilkins is to continue to hide mistakes behind a cloak of national security and continue to defend sending an innocent person to be tortured in Syria since that is what in effect he is doing.


Ottawa reaches $10M settlement with Arar
Last Updated: Thursday, January 25, 2007 | 11:29 PM ET
CBC News
Ottawa has reached a $10-million settlement with Maher Arar over Canada's role in a U.S. decision to deport him to Syria, where he was jailed and tortured.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to make the settlement announcement on Friday afternoon, when he will also issue a formal apology to Arar on behalf of Canadians. Sources told the CBC the government will also pick up Arar's legal fees.

Maher Arar, shown in September, had originally sought millions in compensation and a government apology.
(CBC) Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, had originally sought $37-million in compensation and an official government apology. In previous comments, Harper said that any apology would accompany a settlement.

The apology is expected to highlight that Arar and his family suffered extensively.

Arar, who now lives in Kamloops, B.C., will be in Ottawa on Friday and plans to speak to the media after Harper's announcement.

In 2002, the engineer was living in Ottawa and coming back from a vacation when he was arrested during a stopover at New York's JFK Airport.

Continue Article

U.S. authorities deported him to Syria, where he was tortured.

Ottawa set up a judicial inquiry into the case led by Justice Dennis O'Connor after Arar returned to Canada more than a year later.

O'Connor released his report in September 2006, concluding that Arar had no links to terrorist organizations or militants. He also concluded the RCMP had given misleading information to U.S. authorities, which may have been the reason he was sent to Syria.

"I also recommend that the government assess Mr. Arar's claim for compensation in light of the findings made in this report," O'Connor wrote.

Arar received a unanimous apology from the House of Commons after the report's release. However, the Conservative government later drew a distinction between a parliamentary apology and an official government apology, calling it the former.

At the time, the prime minister acknowledged that Arar had suffered a "tremendous injustice."

Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins criticized Ottawa's efforts to have Arar removed from a United States security watch list, saying Washington alone will decide who to let into the country.

Speaking in Edmonton after meeting with new Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, Wilkins warned Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day to back off because a U.S. review determined Arar should remain on the watch list.

"It's a little presumptuous for him [Day] to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country," Wilkins told reporters Wednesday.

The ambassador reiterated that the U.S. found its own reasons to keep Arar on the watch list.

Day said in a visit last week to Washington that he has seen the information and found nothing new to suggest Arar is a safety risk.

There is no significant US evidence against Arar

There are good reasons to think that Gonzales and Chertoff have no significant evidence against Arar. My reasons for thinking this are as follows.

The extensive O'Connor inquiry after more than two years investigation found that Arar was not a security risk and did not have any links to terrorism.

Stockwell Day the Canadian cabinet minister in charge of security saw the US evidence that the inquiry did not see but did not change his mind about Arar not being a security risk. NOTE: The US refused to co-operate with the Canadian inquiry, itself suspicious. Stockwell Day is pro-US policy and in favor of friendlier and strong relationships with the US even to the point of being in favor of Canadas participation in the Iraq war. If Day had the remotest reason to agree to the US position he would have. He has enough decency not to try and earn brownie points with the US when he saw the emperor had no clothes.

Arar has an appeal pending on his suit against the US. The US position would be weakened if it admits an error in assessing Arar. The US immigration in its decision to deport Arar ruled that Arar was a member of Al Qaeda. The US authorities will not take that back even though they know they have no proof of it.

Finally the O'Connor inquiry revealed that US authorities were constantly asking Canadian intelligence for further evidence against Arar. They even asked whether he would be held and charged if sent back to Canada. Canadian authorities said no that he was only what they called a person of interest. Leahy is wrong when he says that if Arar were sent to Canada he would be held and investigated. He would be scot free as he is now. No charges have even been laid against Arar. The US had no evidence to lay charges even though their immigration found him to be a member of AL Qaeda. Imagine he is a member of Al Qaeda and they did not charge him but simply deported him. What a farce!

Gonzales, Chertoff, and Wilkins are quite willing to further damage an innocent person's reputation, a person already tortured, and also maligned through leaks in the Canadian press earlier. Senator Leahy needs to start his own inquiry into the Arar affair and put US policy in order. THe majority of the American people I am sure do not favor a policy that protects people who have maligned and wronged an innocent person but allows them to get away with it through uttering the mantra of national security.