Canadian Will Remain On U.S. Watch List
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Canadian Maher Arar remains on a U.S. border-control watch list because of information from U.S. law enforcement agencies, despite findings by his government that he was innocent when he was imprisoned and tortured in Syria, top Bush administration security officials said in a letter released yesterday.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff offered no details in the Jan. 16 letter to Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day but said they have shared the information about Arar, a Syrian-born Muslim, with their Canadian counterparts.
After meeting with Chertoff on Thursday, however, Day said that his government had reviewed the U.S. materials and that its position has not changed. Canada has removed Arar, 36, from its own watch list, as recommended by a Canadian judicial inquiry, and the United States should do so as well, Day said.
"Our officials recently have looked at all the U.S. information," he said. "He should not be on that fly list," referring to the watch list.
Arar, a software engineer, was arrested in September 2002 on a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, en route home from Tunisia. He was suspected of having links to al-Qaeda.
Using information supplied by Canadian intelligence that has since been discredited, U.S. authorities deported Arar to Syria, where he was held for more than 10 months in a coffin-like cell.
"It is now crystal clear that the U.S. has shown everything it has on Mr. Arar to Canada, and that there is no reason for him to be on a watch list," said Maria LaHood, an attorney for Arar who works with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) told Gonzales in a hearing last week that U.S. officials "knew damn well" that Arar would be tortured and demanded a briefing by Justice officials this week.
"This abhorrent practice stains America's reputation as a defender and protector of human rights, and I hope this administration will renounce it at long last," Leahy said.
