Korean Job Discussion Forums

[R. S. Refugee]

Tortured Canadian Wins Battle for Truth
Four years after he was detained as
a suspected terrorist, Maher Arar's
name has finally been cleared
by Anne McIlroy


Four years ago, Canadian Maher Arar was detained on a routine airport stopover in the United States. He ended up Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured for 10 months.

When he was released by the Syrians and returned to Canada, he started asking how he had been targeted as an Islamist terrorist. His search for answers has made him into a national celebrity, and is likely to end with an apology from the prime minister himself.

Late last month, a public inquiry cleared him of any connection to terrorism and criticised the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for feeding American officials misleading information about him.

Last week, RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli finally offered Mr Arar a full apology: "I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly to you and to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I am for whatever part the actions of the RCMP may have contributed to the terrible injustices that you experienced and the pain that you and your family endured."

Mr Justice Dennis O'Connor, who led the public inquiry, found that the police had passed faulty intelligence reports to US authorities that had "very likely" led to his arrest at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, and the beginning of Mr Arar's nightmare. He couldn't say for sure because the Americans refused to participate in the inquiry. Based on the flimsiest of evidence - the fact that he was an acquaintance of a man the Americans suspected of being a terrorist - the RCMP told American officials that Mr Arar was suspected of links to Al-Qaida.

. . .
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1002-22.htm

[ddeubel]

Yes, I read this last week. The tiniest of 1 inch by 1 inch , sidebar stories...........and I smiled and felt good that there was some decency left, even if after the fact.

I wonder who Bush will apologize to? -- after all is said and done and there is no more stalling and saying , "this is going to take more time" , this is a "looong war". After all is said and done, he won't apologize. And it is this hubris that is precisely, what is wrong with this quasi war.

Meanwhile mothers of dead soldiers, Iraqi childless parents, men ruined by torture and abduction == must live or try to live among this wrecked policy. No decency there, not even after the fact.


DD