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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
The Maher Arar case: Washington’s practice of torture by proxy
By Keith Jones
18 November 2003
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Maher Arar’s poignant account of his treatment by US, Jordanian and Syrian authorities constitutes a devastating exposure of the illegal, arbitrary and barbaric methods Washington is employing in the name of combating terrorism. It also raises vital questions as to the role that the Canadian government and its police and intelligence agencies played in delivering Arar into the hands of his torturers. (See: Canadian authorities complicit in Arar’s illegal detention and torture.)

A Canadian citizen of Syrian birth, Maher Arar was deported by the US government to Syria via Jordan, with the understanding that the Syrian regime would torture him on Washington’s behalf. The US codename for this practice of torture by proxy is “extraordinary rendition.”

Officially, US authorities deny that they place persons in the hands of regimes that engage in torture. To do so contravenes both international and US law. But in response to the outcry over the Arar case, US officials have vigorously defended Washington’s practice of contracting out interrogations to regimes notorious for their brutality.

A “senior US intelligence official” told the Washington Post that there have been “a lot of rendition activities” since September 11, 2001, “...and they have been very productive.” The Post cites another unnamed US official as saying, “Someone might be able to get information we can’t from detainees.” A third US official previously told the Post: “We don’t kick the s—- out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the s—- out of them.”

Torture, in any circumstances, is abhorrent and illegal. But in the case of Arar, the US had no credible evidence linking him to any terrorist organization. His torture by Syrian military personnel was a US state security-commissioned fishing expedition.

The 33-year-old computer and telecommunications technician was detained by US immigration officials at New York’s JFK Airport in September 2002, while returning to Canada from Tunisia, where he had been visiting his wife’s family. During his subsequent 12-day interrogation by immigration, New York City Police and FBI personnel, Arar was strip-searched, placed in shackles, denied food or sleep for a 28-hour stretch, injected with an unknown substance, and bullied into signing documents he was not allowed to read. For the first five days, Arar was not permitted to see a lawyer or inform anyone, including his family or the Canadian consulate, as to his whereabouts. “They told me I had no right to a lawyer,” says Arar, “because I was not an American citizen.”

Arar had frequently travelled to the US for his work, and only a few months earlier had had his US work-permit extended. He was thus shocked when his interrogators swore and screamed at him, demanding he confess to terrorist ties. The basis of their claim was guilt-by-association and wild extrapolation. Arar is an acquaintance of another Syrian-Canadian who is believed to know an Egyptian-Canadian whose brother was purportedly mentioned in an al-Qaeda document.

Throughout, Arar vigorously denied his interrogators’ allegations. When he realized he might be deported to Syria, he protested that as someone who had left that country so as not to have to perform compulsory military duty and who had family members who had been jailed for alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, he was certain to be tortured if returned there.

What Arar soon found out was that torture was exactly what his US captors wanted.

Since the claim that Arar was implicated in terrorism was nothing more than innuendo, suspicion and anti-Arab prejudice, US authorities could not hold him indefinitely. After all, he had not been captured in Afghanistan, where the US has ignored the Geneva Conventions and applied its own rules for dealing with “enemy combatants.” Nor was he even technically in violation of US immigration rules, as were most of those caught up in the post-September 11 US government-dragnet.

Nonetheless, US authorities were determined not to cede to Arar’s request that he be deported to Canada, the country where he had resided for most of the past 15 years, where his wife and two children live, and whose passport he was travelling on. Had they done so, they undoubtedly could have called on the Canadian police and intelligence agencies, with whom they cooperate on a daily basis, to continue to investigate Arar. (Indeed, US government officials have said that it was on the basis of intelligence supplied by Canadian police and security agencies that they acted against Arar.) Instead, they chose to render him to Syria, so he could be detained indefinitely without trial and his interrogation could continue using other, more savage, methods.

In the absence of his lawyer and Canadian consular representation, an immigration “hearing” was held at which Arar was told he was being expelled to Syria. “They told me,” recalls Arar, “that based on classified information that they could not reveal to me, I would be deported to Syria. I said again that I would be tortured there. Then they read part of the document where it explained that INS was not the body that deals with Geneva Convention regarding torture.”

Arar was then transported to Washington, where he was placed in the hands of a “special removal unit” and flown in a small jet to Amman, Jordan.

Once in the custody of Jordanian security personnel, he was blindfolded, shackled and driven round for half a day, during which he was frequently physically attacked. “Every time I talked,” reports Arar, “they beat me.” Finally he was delivered to the Syrian border, from whence he was taken to a Syrian military prison.

Arar would spend a total of 10 months in captivity in Syria. For much of this time, he was held in solitary confinement in a tiny cell that he has likened to a grave. “It had no light, it was three feet wide, it was six feet deep, it was seven feet high... There was a small opening in the ceiling...and from time to time, the cats peed through the opening into the cell... I had moments I wanted to kill myself.”

Arar was repeatedly assaulted with an electric cable, threatened with even more severe forms of torture and forced to endure the screams of fellow prisoners. “Interrogators constantly threatened me with the metal chair, tire and electric shocks. The tire is used to restrain prisoners while they torture them with beating on the soles of their feet. I guess I was lucky, because they put me in the tire, but only as a threat.”

The full text of Arar’s November 4 press statement, which recounts his experience in harrowing detail, can be viewed at this address.

The chargé d’affaires at Syria’s US embassy, Imad Moustafa, has admitted that Syria imprisoned Arar at the US’s request: “They told us he was an al Qaeda activist, so we took him and put him in custody.”

That Arar was being held and tortured by the Syrians on behalf of Washington is underscored by the timing of his release. Arar was allowed to return home to Canada in mid-October, shortly after the US had endorsed an Israeli bombing raid against Syria.

Washington routinely levels accusations of torture against regimes that have run afoul of the US’s economic and geo-political interests. But, as the Arar case demonstrates, such condemnations are utterly hypocritical. The Bush administration feels no more bound by international and US laws that forbid torture and rendering persons into the hands of torturers, than it does by international and US constitutional prohibitions banning detention without trial and “pre-emptive” wars.






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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
Canadian authorities complicit in Arar’s illegal detention and torture
By Keith Jones
18 November 2003
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Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has condemned US authorities for their treatment of Maher Arar—the Syrian-born Canadian citizen whom the US deported to Syria so he could be detained without charge and tortured. “It is completely unacceptable and deplorable,” declared Chrétien the day after Arar had held a press conference to explain how US officials had deported him to Syria over his vehement objections and how in Syria he had been held in a tiny cell and savagely beaten.

Washington’s treatment of Arar was abhorrent and criminal. (See Washington’s practice of torture by proxy: the Maher Arar Case.) Chrétien’s denunciation of the conduct of US immigration and security officials, however, fits to a tee the old adage, “he doth protest too much.” Especially since Chrétien has categorically refused to call a public inquiry into the role Canadian authorities played in Arar’s ordeal.

US officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have said that the US only detained Arar because Canadian police and security agencies—the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and probably also the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)—had identified him as a terrorist suspect. Yet Chrétien has brushed this aside, saying anything that happened to Arar was the fault of US immigration, police and intelligence agencies.

Arar became suspicious that he had been fingered by Canadian authorities when his US interrogators revealed an extensive knowledge of his life in Canada. “They were consulting a report while they were questioning me,” Arar told a November 4 news conference, “and the information was so private, I thought this must come from Canada.”

Arar’s US interrogators confronted him with a copy of the lease he took out on an Ottawa house in 1997 that had been co-signed by another Syrian-born Canadian, Abdullah Almalki. They also told him that he had been observed eating a meal in an Ottawa fast-food restaurant with Almalki.

The subsequent conduct of Canadian authorities indicates that Canada’s security and diplomatic establishment, or at the very least important elements of it, condoned, if not actively sought, Arar’s deportation to Syria.

* Although the Canadian government ultimately protested against Arar’s detention in Syria, CSIS agents reportedly travelled to Damascus to obtain information from the Syrian regime about the “confession” its interrogators had beaten out of him.

* In recent weeks, information about Arar’s forced confession has been leaked to the Canadian media. The source of the leak has not been identified, but undoubtedly it can be traced back to elements within the RCMP and/or CSIS who are anxious to discredit Arar, the better to defend their own role in fingering him.

* According to the Toronto Star, the US Ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, reportedly told a private audience that Canada wanted Arar detained in Syria.

* The Canadian consular official who met with Arar while he was being detained in New York dismissed his warning that he was in danger of being deported to Syria.

* In August, Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham reported that a Canadian representative had met with Arar in Syria and Arar had rejected suggestions he had been tortured. Arar says this is utterly untrue. In fact, he put himself in extreme danger by screaming to the Canadian representative that he was being abused and had been tortured. Graham has ordered an internal inquiry to determine why Arar’s account differs so radically from that of the representative who met with him.

Further questions about Canada’s role are raised by the fate of the aforementioned Abdullah Almalki. An engineer and Canadian citizen, he was arrested in May 2002 while visiting his family in Syria and has been held without charge by Syria ever since. Arar encountered Almalki while in detention in Syria and reports that he has been subjected to even worse treatment than he was.

There is every reason to believe that Almalki was arrested on the basis of suspicions raised by the Canadian intelligence authorities—suspicions the Canadian government now concedes were unwarranted. Writes Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom, “Abdullah Almalki, a Canadian citizen, is being tortured in a Syrian prison because the security services of his own country passes on unproven suspicions to Damascus—either directly or, more likely, through the US. ... If this is what intelligence sharing means, it must stop right now.”

Chrétien has tried to justify his refusal to call a public inquiry by saying that the Arar case has been referred to the RCMP’s Public Complaints Commissioner. Yet the Commissioner, Shirley Heafey, herself recently complained that the RCMP is not co-operating with her on terror-related enquiries, hiding behind the sweeping, new Anti-Terrorism Act.






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WSWS : News & Analysis : North America : Canada

Ashcroft defends US victimization and abuse of Maher Arar
By Keith Jones
4 December 2003
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US Attorney General John Ashcroft has unequivocally defended the US government’s treatment of Maher Arar—the Syrian-born Canadian whom US authorities seized, then delivered to Syria, where he was held without trial and repeatedly tortured.

At a November 19 meeting with Canadian Solicitor-General Wayne Easter, Ashcroft said US authorities have no reason to apologize to either Arar or Canada. Arar’s seizure—he was effectively kidnapped while transferring planes at New York’s JFK Airport during a return trip from Tunisia to Canada—and his deportation to Syria were, insisted Ashcroft, a necessary element in the Bush administration’s war on terrorism.

Ashcroft himself refused to meet with reporters at the conclusion of the meeting with his Canadian counterpart. Instead, he left it to Easter to explain the US position to the press: “Mr. Ashcroft assured us that, from his perspective ... there were no laws broken. He feels that they [US authorities] were operating under their mandate in the interests of their laws and national security.”

In keeping with the role played by Canadian police and intelligence agencies throughout the Arar affair, Easter painted the actions of US authorities in the best light. While saying it was unfortunate that Arar’s rights as a Canadian citizen had been violated, he added, “I just wonder what kind of decision one would make given all the facts and information” the US authorities “had before them.”

The next day Ashcroft told reporters that prior to transferring Arar to Syria via Jordan, the US had obtained assurances from the Syrian government that Arar would not be mistreated. This is a transparent lie meant to cover up the abuse of Arar’s most elementary human rights and the Bush administration’s complicity in torture and its wanton disregard for the law.

Unnamed senior US officials have repeatedly told the Washington Post that since September 11, 2001, the US is routinely “rendering” terrorist suspects to countries that practice torture, including Egypt, Syria and Jordan, so as to obtain information that could not be elicited through less aggressive interrogation methods.

Such a practice is a flagrant violation of both international and US law, which expressly prohibits delivering someone into the hands of a government that practices torture. Yet shortly after Arar gave a press conference at which he detailed the torture to which he was subjected in Syria and charged the US with complicity, the Post again cited US officials defending the practice of “rendering.” According to a “senior intelligence official” the practice of torture by proxy has “been very productive.”

As proof of his claims that the US was in no way party to Arar’s torture, Ashcroft pointed to a statement by the chargé d’affaires at Syria’s US embassy denying Arar was in any way mistreated during his almost year-long incarceration in Syria.

That Ashcroft should tout this as evidence is extraordinary given the US government’s routine denunciations of the Syrian regime for lying and torture. Just two weeks prior, President Bush had derided the Syrian regime for “a legacy of torture, oppression, misery and ruin.”

Moreover Ashcroft’s is a case of highly selective citation, since in the very same interview the Syrian chargé d’affaires said that the US had repeatedly promised but failed to provide information tying Arar to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group. Nonetheless, Ashcroft and US authorities continue to insist that their suspicions of Arar were well founded and to insinuate that he is an Al Qaeda operative.

If Ashcroft is now trying to disclaim any responsibility for Arar’s abuse it is because of a growing public outcry over the Bush administration’s flagrant disregard for elementary legal procedures and human rights in its purported anti-terrorist war and fears senior officials, possibly himself included, could be implicated in criminal wrongdoing.

Given the character of US-Syrian relations, the decision to transfer Arar necessarily had to involve senior members of the Bush administration. The order to deport Arar to Syria—rather than to Canada, the country on whose passport he was traveling and where his wife and children reside—was signed on Ashcroft’s behalf by the then deputy attorney general, Larry Thompson.






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Non-Turkish Crimes Against Humanity

In the name of national security
If Maher Arar was in fact a threat to the US, why...

November 4, 2003
The Iranian

When times are hard and a society is overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty logic is often the first casualty. What was rationally explained yesterday loses transparency and becomes opaque and blind faith born out of insecurity replaces the need to know. The case of Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar and his yearlong ordeal is the case in point.

Last September Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian decent, was stopped and taken into custody at New York's JFK airport by US immigration officials. Mr. Arar, en route to Montreal after vacationing in Tunisia, was anxious to get back to his family. Within days Arar was put on a plane and deported to Syria, a country he had not visited in nearly 18 years.

At no point he was charged or given an official reason as to his arrest. Arar and his wife were highly educated upwardly mobile new immigrants, not the kind of shadowy figures often painted of terrorist suspects. He has a master's degree in Computer Engineering and his wife is a PhD in Mathematics.

What was alarming about the Arar case for many Canadians of Middle Eastern descent was that his Canadian citizenship and passport bought him no protection. He was simply discarded like a piece of rubbish, his fate of no consequence to US Attorney General John Ashcroft and Home Land Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

The Canadian government made some noise and its Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham made some remarks publicly about putting questions to Colin Powel but Americans, poised for a confrontation with Iraq and wearing the cloak of indignation tightly around their collective selves were in no mood to bother with a puny nuisance like the Arar case.

For all intent and purposes Maher Arar was a forgotten man. In the months that followed Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, with the help of some progressive lawyers, embarked on a one-woman crusade on Canadian media to make her husband's plight public. She asked pointed and disturbing questions, which mostly remained unanswered.

Syrian government had informed the Canadians that they intended to charge Arar with membership in the Moslem Brotherhood, a banned organization in Syria. Mr. Arar's wife categorically denied that her husband had any links to Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization and demanded the Canadian government to secure his release from Syrian jail.

Last month Maher Arar was finally released to the custody of Canadian government and was reunited with her family. In a press conference, flanked by his lawyer and his wife, a tired and weary looking Arar recounted torture and interrogation in Syrian jail and demanded a public inquiry as to the hows and whys of his case.

So far no public inquiry is forthcoming. Mr. Ashcroft and Canadian solicitor General Wayne Easter met and discussed the issue but claiming national security, revealed little about the case. However it now appears that the Canadian government, at least its intelligence branch, played a part in Arar's deportation.

Certain intelligence reports about Arar were conveyed to the FBI by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), which may have played a part in his detention at the New York's JFK originally. All Mr. Ashcroft was willing to say was that it was deemed in the national security interest of US to send Arar back to Syria.

And here is were the break down in simple logic appears. If Maher Arar was in fact linked to Al Qaeda or the Moslem Brotherhood and a threat to the US (and so far no one has taken this officially back) why was he not put under custody in the US? It's true he is not a US citizen but neither are tens of so-called enemy combatants in Camp X. If Arar is to be deported to anywhere why not to a friendly country like Canada where he lives and is a citizen of.

The Canadian intelligence already had a file on Arar and could deal with him accordingly.[i] Why would the Americans send a "terror suspect", someone who could potentially provide them with valuable information, to Syria, a "rouge state", one on US State department's list of so-called terrorist states providing financial support and military bases to Hezbaollah and Hamas? Is it possible that the Americans wouldn't at least notify Canadian officials before deporting one of their citizens to a potentially life threatening situation?

Any which way you look at it, there isn't much logic in all of this unless one is willing to have faith in the magic wand of "national security" to explain all. Because when we are scared we relinquish our right to know and to logic and are asked by the state to trust it completely.

The cynical conclusion is that neither the Americans nor the Canadians had conclusive evidence connecting Maher Arar to Al Qaeda or any other terror networks but decided to relieve themselves of his case by simply dumping him into Syrian hands. Let the Syrians do our dirty work. Torture may be a dirty word in the US and Canada but apparently common currency in Syria. Given the right set of "stimulants", either Mr. Arar would fess up or end up dead. Either way he's off our hands. Politics indeed makes strange bedfellows.[ii]

Notes

[i] The single piece of incriminating evidence against Mr. Arar seemed to have been a rental agreement co-signed by a man currently in custody in Syria under suspicion of association with Al Qaeda. According to Arar, he had been friendly with the man's brother through a computer business he had owned at one point. As is the case with most ethnic groups doing business within the community is common practice. Originally the man's brother was supposed to be the co-signer on Arar's rental agreement, but that day the hand of fate interfered, he was held up by another business and sent his brother instead. The situation is best described, well... Kafkaesque.

[ii] A comprehensive view of the Arar case can be found on The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's site at www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/


Non-Turkish Crimes Against Humanity