OTTAWA — 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.
Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen who was deported from the United States to Syria -- where he was tortured as a terrorist suspect -- has suffered "devastating" mental and economic consequences as a result of his ordeal, Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor says in a report released yesterday.
"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.
Mr. Arar, 36, said he had tears in his eyes when he first saw those words jumping out from the report.
Maher Arar, house husband and torture survivor, has moved from Ottawa to Kamloops seen here near his new home in Kamloops September 15, 2006. (John Lehmann/Globe and Mail)
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The judge, he said, "has cleared my name and restored my reputation."
The report says there is no doubt Mr. Arar was tortured in a Syrian military intelligence prison soon after his deportation from the United States in 2002.
Judge O'Connor said he wants to personally thank Mr. Arar for his patience and co-operation during the long inquiry process. "I take my hat off to him."
The 822-page report, which has been censored because of government concerns about national security, also calls for the further independent investigation of the cases of three other Canadian Muslim men -- Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muyyed Nurredin -- who were imprisoned in the Middle East under similar circumstances.
They also say they were tortured.
The RCMP should never share intelligence reports with other countries without written conditions about how that information is used, Judge O'Connor writes.
He also says Canadian government information should never be provided to a foreign country if there is a risk of it being used to torture people.
The report, the result of more than two years of hearings, some of them secret, clears federal officials of any direct involvement in the U.S. government's decision to deport Mr. Arar to the Middle East. Mr. Arar was arrested at Kennedy Airport in New York while travelling on his Canadian passport.
Judge O'Connor blasts the RCMP for providing U.S. authorities with inaccurate intelligence that resulted in Mr. Arar, and his wife Monia Mazigh, being put on a border watch list as dangerous al-Qaeda terrorist suspects.
RCMP antiterrorism investigators violated the force's existing policy when they gave U.S. officials three CD-ROM discs with raw intelligence that had not been analyzed for accuracy.
The Mounties, the report continues, should have flagged the material as being from unproven sources and should have taken precautions to make sure it was not used in U.S. deportation proceedings.
Senior RCMP officers failed to properly supervise the newly created antiterrorism unit to make sure policies were being enforced.
Even after Mr. Arar's return to Canada, the RCMP was causing problems for Mr. Arar. The Mounties, the report says, misled the Privy Council Office at an important meeting, by failing to disclose "certain key facts that could have reflected adversely on the force."
The details of the meeting and who specifically from the RCMP was responsible are not included in the public version of the O'Connor report.
Paul Cavalluzzo, the commission's chief lawyer, declined to say how much material was cut from the public version of the report. But, he said, the commission disagrees with the government on some of its national-security claims and may have to fight it out in the federal courts for the eventual release of evidence that Judge O'Connor believes should be known by the public.
Some of that censored information could be relevant to the cases of the three other Muslim men.
Mr. Cavalluzzo said the commission is not recommending another full-blown inquiry. But the other cases should be examined by an independent fact-finder.
The minority Conservative government, which inherited the Arar file from the Liberals, was cautious and non-committal in its first reaction to Judge O'Connor's report.
What happened to Mr. Arar was "very regrettable," Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said.
The government will study the report before responding in detail, Mr. Day said, delaying further discussion of compensation or possible disciplinary action against the Mounties.
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