US investigation into Arar going nowhere!

These senators say they will have more hearings if they don't get answers. They don't get answers but then they don't hold more hearings either. Meanwhile the press loses interest so they can just keep everything steaming along to nowhere.


Senators say U.S. investigators getting stonewalled on Arar case
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Wed, 2007-02-28 20:19
National News
By: BETH GORHAM

WASHINGTON (CP) - Two U.S. senators complained Wednesday that American investigators have been stonewalled in their internal reviews of Canadian engineer Maher Arar.

In letters to the independent investigative arms of the Homeland Security and Justice departments, senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter demanded to know the status of any probes of Arar's case. And they noted that a former Homeland official reported delays and obstruction in July 2004 in obtaining documents and interviewing officials about how Arar was treated in the U.S.

That investigation is apparently ongoing, said the senators, who want to see a similar inquiry by Justice officials if it isn't already happening.

"We request that you examine the Justice Department's role in the decision to send Mr. Arar to Syria," they wrote.

"We are interested in how the decision was made, whether there were errors in judgment or violations of law and if so, by whom, and what steps have been taken to redress any such errors and to avoid repeating them in the future."

Leahy, chair of the Senate judiciary committee and Specter, the ranking Republican, also want the U.S. Government Accountability Office to conduct an inquiry into whether people like Arar can effectively challenge their presence on terrorist watch lists.

"We ask that you look at . . . any recourse available to people like Mr. Arar who are purposely placed on watch lists but for whom significant additional scrutiny has been conducted which may support a different conclusion," they wrote in a letter sent last week.

Leahy and Specter were briefed by Justice officials on Arar last month but complained they still have a lot more questions.

Arar can't fly into the United States despite being exonerated by a Canadian inquiry of any terrorist ties and getting C$10.5 million in compensation from Ottawa.

He was detained by U.S. officials in New York in 2002 and deported to Syria, where he was interrogated and tortured while imprisoned for 10 months.

Leahy angrily demanded answers in January from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at a public hearing, saying the case was a black mark on the Unites States.

He threatened to hold more public hearings unless he got answers.

Arar, who is still suing U.S. officials, is perhaps the highest-profile case of the U.S. practice of extraordinary rendition where foreigners are sent to third countries for interrogation.

A US opinion piece on the Arar affair

Its good to see an article such as this in a US publication. Rather neat opening too!



The U.S. owes Maher Arar an apology and more
By Robyn Blumner
Tribune Media Services
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:02/05/2007 12:48:54 AM MST

''On behalf of the United States, I wish to apologize to you and your family,'' President Bush told Maher Arar in a televised news conference, during which the president announced that the United States was also giving Arar $8.9 million in compensation for our role in sending the Canadian to a Syrian prison where he was tortured.
OK, now it's time to wake up from a dream. This scene happened all right, not in the United States but in Canada, and the nobly contrite politician was Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, not our own Decider-in-Chief.
Arar's ordeal is well known. The software engineer was detained during a stopover at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in 2002. After being subject to days of interrogation in the United States, the Syrian-born Canadian was sent to Syria under the American program of extraordinary rendition. He spent 10 months in a cell the size of a grave and was tortured into signing a false confession that he was associated with terrorists and had trained in Afghanistan - a place he had never visited. He was eventually released without charge.
Since Arar's return to Canada, our neighbor to the north committed itself to investigating its role in this outrage. A two-year inquiry by Justice Dennis O'Connor concluded that there was no evidence linking Arar to terrorism, and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were demonstrably wrong when they informed U.S. border agents that Arar was suspected of Islamic extremism. The head of the RCMP resigned over the incident.
Canada has now issued a very public apology, coming straight from its national leader, and the nation will compensate Arar for its hand in his terrifying ordeal. Harper has also promised increased oversight of Canada's intelligence agencies ''to lessen the likelihood that something like this will ever happen again.''
Arar responded to the prime minister's gesture by declaring, ''I feel proud as a Canadian.''
Before George W. Bush came to the White House I would have expected our own government to act in a very similar manner: a public apology, the rolling of heads, a promise to exert tighter controls and due compensation to the victim.
Instead, we've responded to Arar by keeping him, his wife and his children on a government watch list so that they cannot travel in or over our country or its territories. We have stymied his lawsuit against the United States for abducting and deporting him, claiming that to allow it to go forward would jeopardize state secrets. And, perhaps most galling, even though it is an open secret that we send people to other countries for interrogation where they are sure to be tortured, we continue to claim that our actions are consistent with the Convention Against Torture - a treaty that explicitly bars such conduct.
The contrast between the model of responsible and responsive governance in Canada and the sniveling, defensive, fabulizing posture of the White House and Justice Department on this matter of national character is the answer to the question: Why does the rest of the world hate us?
The Arar case is the perfect storm of Bush administration arrogance, dishonesty and incompetence coalescing with its utter disregard for the principles of due process and human rights that once were the foundation of our republic.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff claim that there is reason to keep Arar on a watch list. But when Canada's minister of public safety, Stockwell Day, examined Arar's confidential U.S. files he announced that there was ''nothing new'' to justify any continued suspicion.
Arar is a terrorist the same way our Iraq adventure is full of ''enormous successes,'' as the vice president just declared. When reality doesn't fit the script, Team Bush ignores it.
Some of our nation's more responsible political leaders have tried to act more Canada-like. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., has called on the White House to ''admit publicly that it was cruel to detain and transfer'' Arar for torture.
And it was a moment of national pride when Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., publicly called Gonzales on the carpet at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for claiming that assurances were given by Syria that Arar wouldn't be tortured.
''We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured,'' Leahy declared loudly. ''He'd be held. He'd be investigated.
''We also knew damn well, if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured.''
Gonzales could only reiterate the bald-faced lie that the United States tries to meet its anti-torture treaty obligations. How lame.
When Canada is better at demonstrating American values than we are, it's time our government took a refresher in Civics 101. Learn how to apologize and admit error and maybe our great nation will live up to its billing once again.
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* ROBYN BLUMNER welcomes e-mail at blumner@sptimes.com.

Canadian government and Arar reach a settlement

THis is great news for Arar and his family. I thought it would take much longer. In contrast Arar's US suit was thrown out and is at the appeal stage. I expect it will get nowhere because of "security resons". There really needs to be a US investigation that forces Gonzales, Chertoff and others to explain themselves.




Ottawa reaches settlement with Arar
Last Updated: Thursday, January 25, 2007 | 10:31 PM ET
CBC News
The federal government has reached a settlement with Maher Arar, who had been seeking compensation for Canada's role in a U.S. decision to deport him to Syria, where he was jailed and tortured, CBC News has learned.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to make an announcement about it on Friday.

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 millions in compensation and a government apology. While no financial terms were disclosed, the prime minister has said in the past that any Arar apology would accompany a settlement.

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 arrested during a stopover at New York's JFK Airport.

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

Continue Article

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.

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," but noted that Arar had launched legal proceedings against the government. Arar added that he was awaiting discussions with lawyers to reach a result that would satisfy Arar.

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.