Ethics Newsline®

Investigator says he cannot rule out possibility that officials knowingly engaged in “torture by proxy,” deporting suspects to nations where information would be extracted by brutality

WASHINGTON
The United States is reopening a probe into the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian engineer whose extradition to Syria raised questions about the moral implications of the rendition of terror suspects to countries where it is likely that torture will be employed.

Richard Skinner, the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional hearing that his office could not rule out the possibility that officials sent Arar to Syria believing he would be tortured for information in that nation, the Toronto Star reports.

Moreover, Skinner questions the circumstances of the legal process that led to Arar’s deportation, including a late-Sunday-night hearing that his lawyers could not attend, according to a report from the CanWest News Service.

Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained in New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport when returning to Canada from a vacation in 2002. Based in part on information supplied by Canadian authorities, the Canadian National Post reports, Arar was identified as an Islamic extremist and deported to Syria, where he was jailed and tortured for about a year.

Arar later was cleared of any terrorist links and was awarded $10.5 million in compensation by the Canadian government.

U.S. secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has admitted only that communication in the incident was flawed, and Arar remains on the U.S. no-fly list, reports CFTR Radio in Toronto. But several U.S. congressmen have gone on record as apologizing for the actions of U.S. officials.

Sources: Toronto Star, June 5 — CanWest News Service, June 5 — National Post, June 5 — CFTR Radio, June 5.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Aug. 13, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 26, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 29, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 18, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 11, 2006.