Whether deportation or rendition, somebody screwed up, probably mostly us Canuckis, but you Americans might think about this mess a bit too.

I always thought that when you deport someone, you send him where his flight originated, Switzerland, or to the country where he is a citizen, Canada. The flight originating rule requires the airline which brought him to take him back. That’s the reason airlines are often so antsy about seeing a passport, a visa and especially a return ticket. If your papers are bad and you get deported at least they do not have to pay for the airfare.

So why was he sent to Syria? He was born there but so what?

However, I never claim conspiracy where stupidity and nastiness will do. American immigration staff are known around the world as all too often both nasty and stupid. The damage they do to your country’s business prospects and reputation is incredible.

How do you think a Syrian ex-pat with citizenship in Israel, Europe, Asia or Canada, with money, a good job or a good business feels about travel to the USA? Especially with a ‘funny’ name and fearing someone is saying “Damn Ay-rabs all look the same anyhow”.

“So why was he sent to Syria? He was born there but so what?”

We flew him to Jordan. I’d like to know how he got to Syria. And I’d like to see him get well compensated for his troubles.

However, I never claim conspiracy where stupidity and nastiness will do. American immigration staff are known around the world as all too often both nasty and stupid.

Yeah, we need a policy more like Britain: where if you have a terrorist or hard-core felon on your hands, you are stuck shit. It is almost impossible to deport them if they are from a country that doesn’t have a good human rights record.

It is amazing how many cases I read about in Britain where a criminal couldn’t be deported and ended up reoffending again and again until they found themselves doing a serious stretch in prison for a murder or a brutal rape.

That is political correctness and failing to take care of your own citizenry for you. That is what the Amnesty International crowd would be all too happy to foster upon our own citizens.

Oh, and by the way, you Canadians need no help in deporting potential terrorists to countries where they might be tortured:

http://moderntribalist.blogspot.com/2006/07/canada-orders-that-alleged-al-qaeda.html

[JunkYardDog]

So let me get this straight:

Canada tells us this guy might be a terrorist, so we ship him off to Syria for torture and interrogation? Seriously: I’m deeply sorry for the pain and anguish Mr. Arar endured, and he has my sympathy. I wish him the best of luck at putting his life back together after this nightmare. If this is on the level,

[My Reply]

To really understand the Toronto Sun story you quote you should go to the source and read the full Commissioner’s Report

[JunkYardDog]

I hope the court system comes through and Syria has to pay him a mint.

[My Reply]

Whose court system, Canada’s, Syria’s or the US’s? He is suing all three and at least for now his case against the US has been dismissed under the states secret arguement

[JunkYardDog]

At this point it certainly looks like an innocent man was tortured by Syria

[My Reply]

I am glad you think so.

[JunkYardDog]

—even though I’m not taking everything he says at face value, yet.

[My Reply]

You shouldn’t need to take Mr. Arar word for it, (althought you can) but you might consider what the Arar Inquiry has to say about the entire story

[JunkYardDog]

He says he was beaten with electrical cords until they frayed,

[My Reply]

He did not say this but said that he was hit with frayed electrical cords [ 1 ]

[JunkYardDog]

but a visiting consular official saw no signs of torture on him?

[My Reply]

True but as the Commissioner’s report highlights this was extremely erroneous and extremely dangerous on the part of that consular official and the Canadian government.

[JunkYardDog]

Maybe. I’d just like to learn more.

[My Reply]

You can read the entire public testimony at the Arar Inquiry here and a summary in camera or classifed evidence here

[JunkYardDog]

I’m sure someone in the blogosphere will come out with a huge debunking of his story pretty soon, and who knows? They might be right.

But I can’t help but look at this story and wonder about this rendition policy. Sure, Syria’s a secular Baathist state. They’re also hip-deep in Hezbollah and Hamas and, apparently, Al Qaeda . They’re on the junior-varsity Axis of Evil and they have long been designated a state sponsor of terrorism . So we ship them a suspect and tell them to find out the truth for us?

If a guy we send over there is really Al Qaeda, why would they tell us that? I’d expect Bashar Assad to say, “Oh, no, CIA, we tortured him half to death, I tell you, and we learned absolutely nothing about Al Qaeda we didn’t already know. Take it from me, he’s clean. In fact we’ve written this guy a letter of recommendation for a maintenance job in your NORAD HQ.”

[My Reply]

A better question might be why send him to Syria in the first place?

[JunkYardDog]

Either this is a misunderstanding and it was not a rendition, but simply a deportation—or Syria is working more closely with the US than they would like us to believe.

[My Reply]

Again who is “they” you are refering to? It is actually a matter of public record that the United States Government was working closely with the government of Syria in it’s fight again terrorism shortly after Sept. 11. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ]

[JunkYardDog]

Or, this is one of the most bizarre, ill-conceived plans I’ve ever heard. I think the same people came up with this plan as came up with the idea of sending Joe “Sherlock” Wilson over to Niger to sip sweet mint tea in order to nail down Saddam’s nuke plans once and for all.

Oh, wait a minute. Even as I google around while I write this I see that AG Gonzales has in fact already said it was a deportation, not a rendition .

“Mr. Arar was deported under our immigration laws. He was initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists, and he was deported according to our laws,” Gonzales told reporters.

This makes a lot more sense than thinking we were relying on Syria to do our interrogatin’ for us. We deport people back to hell-holes all the time. So does Canada. Bad things sometimes happen to these people. For instance, if this blogger gets denied Canadian asylum, he’ll be sent back to Pakistan, where they will execute him for being an apostate from Islam.

[My Reply]

True we deport people, but it is currently against US law to deport someone where the is a “high likelyhood” they would be tortured; which ties us into the whole debate currently going on.

[JunkYardDog]

If we deport you, we’re done with you. But if it’s a rendition, we take care of you, says the AG:

“Even if it were a rendition, we understand as a government what our obligations are with respect to anyone who is rendered by this government to another country, and that is that we seek to satisfy ourselves that they will not be tortured,” he said. “And we do that in every case. And if in fact he had been rendered to Syria, we would have sought those same kind of assurances, as we do in every case.” In the meantime I don’t see that this has squat to do with the ongoing interrogation debate. /We didn’t torture the guy/; there’s /no evidence that we asked/, and no plausible reason we would ask, /Syria to torture him or interrogate him/; and it /wasn’t a rendition/, and if it were a rendition /we’d make sure there wasn’t any torture/.

[My Reply]

First why would the Attorney General need to make that clarification in the first point? If it was an deportation issue then it was a deportation issue. Period. End of Story. But he did not he went further highlighting the if we do deport people we get assuranbce that those we deport will not be torued. But you will find that the former CIA Director Porter Goss has also said on this matter that we, the US, can not be exactly sure those deported will not be mistreated . So why trust this “assurances” if they offer no guarentee?

1. this entire family entered canada illegally, and then lied at immigration hearings to get the coveted “canadian of conveience” by refugee designation.

2. within days of getting papered as canadians, and ‘refugees’, they continued with their terrorist connections, loudly, and without chance of deportation, or removal of citizenship, proclaiming far and wide their pride in terrorist support and affiliation.

3. when deported, and ‘tortured’ in syria, over numerous visits by canadian consular officials, there was not one, echo, NOT ONE, complaint of torture from this guy. torture only entered the game plan when returned to the “canada of conveience” where false lawsuits for compensation could be floated before politically correct courts, absorbed with assumed guilt for western society’s success and freedom. a nice neat facile way to garner undeserved financial reward.

4. this family came to canada as illegal entrants, and claimed refuge from, note this, europe!

5. if i sound upset by this i am. there are many, many legitimate refugees, and people waiting in line for legal immigration, that are denied entry because foreign criminals are allowed to jump the queue, and take advantage of good will from canada.

Why Syria? Because Arar has dual citizenship, Canada and Syria. So he was deported to a nation (Syria) of which he was and is a citizen. The stop in Jordan was just a stop-over as there aren’t many direction connections for the USA to Syria. Arar wasn’t deported to Canada (of which he is also a citizen) because it was the Canadians who said he was dangerous.

Why dual citizenship? Because Syria refuses to recognize the citizenship from another country and thus any Syrian born natural who immigrates to another contry retains their Syrian citizenship and gains, in addition, the citizenship of the country they immigrate to.

And why not deport him to Canada? Because Canada would not detain Mr. Arar because it had no legal reason to. From the Commissioner’s Report …

“At 6:10 p.m. on Saturday, October 5, Corporal Flewelling received a call at home from the same FBI official, who told him that the FBI was unable to read Project A-O Canada’s October 4 fax containing answers to the questions sent on October 3. He requested that the report be re-faxed. 138 During this conversation, the FBI official said that the Americans feared they did not have sufficient information to support charges against Mr. Arar, and they would therefore be looking into deporting him. He informed Corporal Flewelling that Mr. Arar was a dual citizen and had asked to be deported to Canada. He also said that Washington wanted to know about the RCMP’s interest in Mr. Arar (i.e., was the RCMP able to charge him) and if it could refuse him entry into Canada. Corporal Flewelling told the FBI official that if an individual has Canadian citizenship, and there is not enough evidence to support charges in the United States, let alone Canada, it is likely that the person could not be refused entry into the country. 139 Although Corporal Flewelling was not experienced in immigration matters, he did not seek guidance, information or advice before providing the FBI official with this information. According to Corporal Flewelling, his honest belief was that a Canadian citizen, even if he is a dual national, cannot be refused entry into the country. 140 The October 5 conversation was recorded in Corporal Flewelling’s notebook.” Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar , Factual Background, Vol I, pgs 168-169

My only question is: if he wasn’t an American citizen, why was America the one who deported him to Syria? Can we do that?

There are alot of legal and politcial issues here which outlines from that standpoint whether or not it is legal to do this.

But the starting point for his deportation had to do with his flight stopover at JFK airport. At some point after this incident, the US Government stated that according to US law non citzens who are transfers flights within US territory whether or not it is simple just a connecting flight, have no rights.

This issue was in the news a couple of years ago.

1. this entire family entered canada illegally, and then lied at immigration hearings to get the coveted “canadian of conveience” by refugee designation.
2. within days of getting papered as canadians, and ‘refugees’, they continued with their terrorist connections, loudly, and without chance of deportation, or removal of citizenship, proclaiming far and wide their pride in terrorist support and affiliation.
3. when deported, and ‘tortured’ in syria, over numerous visits by canadian consular officials, there was not one, echo, NOT ONE, complaint of torture from this guy. torture only entered the game plan when returned to the “canada of conveience” where false lawsuits for compensation could be floated before politically correct courts, absorbed with assumed guilt for western society’s success and freedom. a nice neat facile way to garner undeserved financial reward.
4. this family came to canada as illegal entrants, and claimed refuge from, note this, europe!
5. if i sound upset by this i am. there are many, many legitimate refugees, and people waiting in line for legal immigration, that are denied entry because foreign criminals are allowed to jump the queue, and take advantage of good will from canada.

This is an interesting post because every single word is a lie. Or, alternatively, it might all be true and this is the first anyone’s ever heard of it. Since when did Arar enter the country illegally? Or his wife? It’s worth pointing out that they met in Canada, not outside, so they certainly didn’t enter “as a family.” As for terrorist connections, despite the best efforts of the Canadian, American, and Syrian intelligence services, there is still not a shred of evidence known to link him to anything.

Amazing how dishonest people will get when they want to make a point, facts be damned.

Tommy, you are right about the British problems, but it doesn’t deal with American ones.

Ed M and Annoying old guy: Did Arar ever take steps to enbrace or renounce Syrian citizenship, or was it just ‘residual’? I’m curious about the Jordan bit too; was it just the first and easiest connecting flight? Why didn’t he get off in Jordan and try again?.

Mostly I worry about two police forces getting together, expressly accepting that there is no evidence against a guy, and sending him to hell anyway. RCMP to FBI: “Hey, Jake, we can’t do nuthin’, kick him inna nuts for us, wouldja.” I’m not so sure Arar is anywhere near as innocent as he claims, but I don’t know. What I do know is that a bunch of coppers, Canadian and American, were acting like judge, jury and lord high executioner. Not their job.

Fred Z: Mr. Arar Syrian citizenship comes from his Syrian birth. At age 17 he immigrated to Canada and later became a Canadian citizen. Syria, as a nation and as far as I understand it, does not nor will it not relinguish that citizenship even if Mr. Arar chose to denounce his Syrian citizenship (and in a sense he did do this by becoming a Canadian citizen).

But if Syria claims he is a citizen of that nation then the United States at some level accepts his citizenship as Syrian. And in Mr. Arar’s case the United States also accepts him as being a Canadian citizen.

His flight into Jordan was on a private jet under the detention of the FBI and US Immigration services. Let me recap part of his story…

Mr. Arar was flying from Tuni, Tunsinia through Zurich and then through JFK airport in New York, en route to Montreal. While passing through the immigration counter at JFK he was pulled aside and then question by immigration officials. He was then detained by both immigration and FBI within New York. Twelve days later he was then “deported” by immigration officials and the FBI on a flight which went from NJ to Washington, DC to Portland, Maine, to Rome, and then onto Amman Jordan; all this time under the detention again of the immigration service and the FBI. Once in Jordan he was passed through several groups of people, interogated shortly, then eventually sent to Syria.

There has been an update regarding the Arar Case. The report noted above contained several portions which were removed for reason of national security. A certain number of those words have now been released. This addendum to the report can be found on the Arar Commission’s website.