Maher Arar is an innocent victim of inaccurate RCMP intelligence reports and deliberate smears by Canadian officials, a commission of inquiry says in a report that also recommends the federal government pay him compensation.
As The Globe's Jeff Sallot reports in today's front page article How Canada failed citizen Maher Arar Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was deported from the United States to Syria, where he was tortured as a terrorist suspect.
Mr. Arar has suffered "devastating" mental and economic consequences as a result of his ordeal, Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor says in the report released Monday.
"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada," the judge says.
How did this happen? Who's to blame? What will happen next?
Mr. Sallot was on-line earlier today to try to answer those questions. The questions and Mr. Sallot's answers are at the bottom of this page.
Mr. Sallot has been a correspondent with The Globe and Mail since 1974, based in Toronto, Edmonton, Moscow and twice in Ottawa.
He shared a Pulitzer Prize for news reporting about the shooting deaths of four students by National Guardsmen during anti-war protests at Kent State University in 1970 in Ohio.
He is a veteran of many Canadian federal and provincial elections but says the most memorable campaign he has covered was the Solidarity Movement's defeat of the Communist Party in Poland in 1989 in the first free elections in post-war Eastern Europe, a precursor to the end of the Cold War.
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Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Welcome back, Jeff. It's always good to have you on globeandmail.com. Your report in today's Globe was very comprehensive. The question that sticks in my mind is whether you found any surprises in this report? Or whether this basically stated officially what was well-known in advance?
Jeff Sallot: Hi, Jim, glad to be here. In terms of the facts of the Arar case, the report held few surprises. There is, however, a lot of rich detail in the report. And I hadn't expected Judge O'Connor to be as tough as he was on the leaks of information — and misinformation — about Mr. Arar to news media. Judge O'Connor said this was a deliberate attempt to smear Arar to head off the possibility of an investigation into how Mr. Arar got sent to Syria.
Moreover, senior officers at the RCMP concealed their activities in the investigation from the Privy Council Office, which is the central federal agency. This is a cautionary tale, I think, for cabinet ministers. Don't take what your bureaucrats say at face value. Ask the tough questions.
Les Caine, Brampton, Ont.: How is it possible for the United States government to send a Canadian citizen to certain torture in a Third World country and add insult to injury by not participating in the Canadian inquiry into this travesty of justice? How can Maher Arar expect justice if the real perpetrators are not accountable?
Jeff Sallot: Good point, Les. There is a hierarchy of responsibility here. Obviously, the Syrian torturers of Mr. Arar have the most to answer for. They are also the most likely to never be held to account. Civil law suits in Syria against the military don't go very far.
Next come the Americans, who are responsible for deporting Mr. Arar. He has launched a civil action in U.S. courts but it is being tied up with appeals and issues of national security, raised by the Bush administration. The wheels of justice grind slowly in the U.S. But he has the backing of an American constitutional law group and they will push the case as far as they can.
