http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/...a_torture_case
TORONTO - A government commission said Monday that Canadian police informed U.S. authorities an Ottawa man was an Islamic extremist suspected of links to al-Qaida — inaccurate information that likely led the Americans to deport him to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured.
The commission of inquiry into the case of Syrian-born Maher Arar exonerated him of all suspicion of terrorist activity and urged the federal government to offer financial compensation. Arar claims he was a victim of extraordinary rendition — or the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.
"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada," Commissioner Dennis O'Connor said in a three-volume report on the findings of the inquiry, only part of which was made public.
Arar, a software engineer, was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was detained at New York's Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002, during a stopover on his way home to Canada from vacation in Tunisia.
Arar said U.S. authorities sent him to Syria for interrogation as a suspected al-Qaida member, an allegation he denied.
He spent nearly a year in prison in Syria. After his release in 2003, Arar made detailed allegations about extensive interrogation, beatings and whippings with electrical cable in Syrian prison cells.
Justice O'Connor also criticized the U.S. and recommended that Ottawa file formal protests with both Washington and the Syrian government over Arar's treatment.
The U.S. is already under intense criticism from human rights groups over the practice of rendition of suspects to countries where they could be tortured.
President Bush acknowledged earlier this month that a small number of high-value terrorism suspects had been held in secret CIA-run prisons in other countries. They included the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
U.S. and Syrian officials refused to cooperate in the Canadian inquiry.
The commission found the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shared information about Arar with American anti-terrorist agencies both before and after he was detained. Among other things, the RCMP wrongly described Arar to the Americans as "an Islamic extremist suspected of being linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network."
The force also described him as the "target" of a domestic anti-terrorist investigation in Canada when in fact he was a peripheral figure who had come under suspicion only because he had been seen in the company of another man who was under surveillance.
O'Connor concluded the inaccurate information passed by Canadian police to U.S. authorities "very likely" led to their decision to send Arar to Syria.
"It's quite clear that the RCMP sent inaccurate information to U.S. officials," Arar said. "I would have not have even been sent to Syria had this information not been given to them."
"I have waited a long time to have my name cleared. I was tortured and lost a year of my life. I will never be the same," Arar said. "The United States must take responsibility for what it did to me and must stop destroying more innocent lives with its unlawful actions."
The commission concluded there was no evidence Canadian officials participated in or agreed to the decision to send Arar to Syria. But O'Connor recommends that in the future, information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture.
Most of the judge's 23 policy recommendations centered on the RCMP and emphasized the need to improve the force's internal policies for national security investigations and the sharing of information with other countries.
Arar's case has regularly been featured on the front pages of Canadian newspapers and public outcry led to the government calling an inquiry. Canada's federal government established the inquiry in 2004 to determine the role Canadian officials played.
O'Connor also found "troubling questions" about the role played by Canadian officials in the cases of three other Arab-Canadians, Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All claim they were tortured in Syria after traveling there on personal business, and all suspect that the RCMP and/or Canada's spy agency collaborated with their captors.
O'Connor said he could not get to the bottom of those cases because of the limited nature of his mandate. But he urged the government to appoint an independent investigator — something short of a full-fledged public inquiry — to look into those cases.
O'Connor sifted through thousands of pages of documents and sat through testimony from more than 40 witnesses. He delivered two versions of his report to the government: one classified, the other public. But portions of even the public edition of the long-awaited document will be withheld due to security concerns.
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