This is why I'm strongly opposed to torture in extracting information

[moe.ron]

Not only is this method illegal under international law and immoral, but it is also unreliable. I know that if I'm tortured, you damn right I'll say anything for them to stop. This is the case of Maher Arar. The action of both Syria and US is shameful to the nth degree.

Canadian tells of deportation by U.S., then torture in Syria
DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE PRESS SERVICES

Posted on Thursday, November 6, 2003

TORONTO — A Canadian citizen detained as a terrorism suspect last year at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport said Tuesday that he was secretly deported to Syria and endured 10 months of torture in a prison there.

Maher Arar, 33, released last month, said at a news conference in Ottawa that he pleaded with U.S. authorities to let him continue to Canada, where he has lived for 15 years and has a family. Instead, he was flown under U.S. guard to Jordan and handed over to Syria, where he was born. Arar denied any connection to terrorism and said he would fight to clear his name.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien blamed the United States on Wednesday for Arar’s deportation. "It is unacceptable and deplorable what happened to this gentleman," Chretien said Wednesday. "This gentleman was in New York, and he was deported to Syria by the American government. The Canadian government had nothing to do with it. When we heard about it, we protested."

U.S. officials said Tuesday that Arar was deported because his name had been put on a terrorist watch list after information from "multiple international intelligence agencies" linked him to terrorist groups.

Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that the decision to deport Arar was based on information from foreign intelligence. "I think we need to dispel the notion that this was an arbitrary decision on the part of our government," Ridge said Oct. 3. "There was sufficient information within the international intelligence community about this individual that we felt warranted his deportation."

A U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday on condition of anonymity that some of the information came from Canada’s foreign intelligence agencies.

Officials said on condition of anonymity that the Arar case fits the profile of a covert CIA "extraordinary rendition" — the practice of turning over low-level, suspected terrorists to foreign intelligence services, some of which are known to torture prisoners.

Arar’s case has brought repeated apologies from the Canadian government.

Chretien, answering questions from opposition lawmakers in Parliament, ignored calls for a public inquiry into Arar’s case but said Canada has asked Syria and the United States for the names of any Canadian officials involved.

Chretien also said the United States should have informed Canada about Arar’s deportation to Syria, while Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said it surprised Canadian consular officials in New York to learn Arar was flown to the Middle East. In Washington a senior State Department official said Wednesday that Secretary of State Colin Powell told Graham he would look into the matter. It was unclear if Powell would have any influence, as terrorism issues generally come under the Justice and Homeland Security departments.

In an interview on CBC Radio, Imad Moustafa, the Syrian charge d’affaires in Washington, denied that Arar had been tortured. Arar said U.S. officials apparently based the terrorism accusation on his connection to Abdullah Almalki, another Syrian-born Canadian. Almalki is being detained by Syrian authorities although no charges against him have been reported. Arar said he knew Almalki only casually before his detention but encountered him at the Syrian prison where both were tortured.

Arar, whose case has become a cause celebre in Canada, demanded a public inquiry. "I am not a terrorist," he said. "I am not a member of al-Qaida. I have never been to Afghanistan."

He said he was flying home to Montreal by way of New York on Sept. 26, 2002, from a family visit to Tunisia. "This is when my nightmare began," he said. "I was pulled aside by immigration and taken [away]. The police came and searched my bags. I asked to make a phone call, and they would not let me." He said an FBI agent and a New York City police officer questioned him. "I was so scared," he said. "They told me I had no right to a lawyer because I was not an American citizen."

Arar said he was shackled, placed on a small jet and flown to Washington, where "a new team of people got on the plane" and took him to Amman, the capital of Jordan. Arar said U.S. officials handed him over to Jordanian authorities, who "blindfolded and chained me and put me in a van. ... They made me bend my head down in the back seat. Then these men started beating me. Every time I tried to talk, they beat me."

He said he was taken hours later to Syria, where he was forced to write that he had attended a training camp in Afghanistan. "They kept beating me, and I had to falsely confess," he said. "I was willing to confess to anything to stop the torture."

Arar said his prison cell "was like a grave, exactly like a grave. It had no light; it was 3 feet wide; it was 6 feet deep; it was 7 feet high.... It had a metal door. There was a small opening in the ceiling. There were cats and rats up there, and from time to time the cats peed through the opening into the cell."

Steven Watt, a human-rights fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights in Washington, said Arar’s case raised questions about U.S. counterterrorism measures. "Here we have the United States involved in the removal of somebody to a country where it knows persons in custody of security agents are tortured," Watt said. "The U.S. was possibly benefiting from the fruits of that torture. I ask the question: Why wasn’t he removed to Canada?"

A senior U.S. intelligence official discussed the case in terms of the secret rendition policy. There have been "a lot of rendition activities" since Sept. 11, 2001, the official said. "We are doing a number of them, and they have been very productive."

Renditions are a legitimate option for dealing with suspected terrorists, intelligence officials argue. The U.S. government officially rejects the assertion that it knowingly sends suspects abroad to be tortured, but officials admit they sometimes do that. "The temptation is to have these folks in other hands because they have different standards," one official said. "Someone might be able to get information we can’t from detainees," another official said.

Syria, where use of torture during imprisonment has been documented by the State Department and independent human-rights organizations, maintains a secret but growing intelligence relationship with the CIA, intelligence experts said. Jordan has strong and longstanding ties with U.S. intelligence.

Information for this article was contributed in Toronto by Deneen L. Brown and in Washington by Dana Priest, John Mintz and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and in Toronto by Tom Cohen of The Associated Press.