Another very, very, important investigative story by the Globe and Mail–they obtained a copy of the I.N.S. document which determined that Arar was a member of Al Qaeda:
According to U.S. documents obtained by The Globe and Mail, an Immigration and Naturalization Service’s regional director concluded that Mr. Arar was a member of al-Qaeda because the 33-year-old Ottawa computer engineer admitted to the FBI after his arrest in 2002 that he was acquainted with two men suspected of being terrorists at the time.
“I have determined that Arar is a member of the designated foreign terrorist organization known as al-Qaeda,” INS Eastern region director J. Scott Blackman wrote in his October, 2002, decision.
The seven-page decision does not give any further reasons for the finding.
It refers to the two men — Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad Abou El-Maati — and to information received from the FBI and other unspecified agencies. It says that a “classified addendum” spells out more clearly why Mr. Arar was regarded as a security threat, but that attachment remains classified….
Mr. Blackman outlined his reasoning in a decision he wrote only a few hours before. “The FBI interviewed Arar on September 27, 2002, at JFK International Airport. During the interview, Arar admitted his association with Abdullah Almalki and Abdullah Almalki’s brother, Nazih Almalki,” it reads.
Mr. Arar had told the FBI he worked as a computer engineer with Nazih Almalki, who has never been accused of involvement in terrorism. Mr. Arar also had said he once met Abdullah Almalki outside an Ottawa fast-food restaurant and “advised the FBI that Almalki exports radios and that one of his customers was the Pakistani military,” according to the INS.
The significance of this fact is unclear, though RMCP officers who questioned the Almalki family suggested that some of the exported computer equipment ended up in al-Qaeda’s hands.
As for Mr. Arar’s relationship with Mr. El-Maati, the truck driver, the INS director’s description is even more terse. “During the September 27, 2002, interview at JFK, Arar admitted knowing Ahman [sic] El-Maati,” it reads.
Is that it? There is that still-classified appendix (though I have dark guesses about that containing information from Almalki’s interrogation in Syria). But, my God. On the basis of this, and statements made under torture, the Department of Justice continues to assert that Arar is in Al Qaeda?
As you can see from that Globe and Mail piece, the Canadian press continues to be all over this story despite the search on and threatened arrest of Juliet O’Neill (which seems to be totally backfiring). The American press, which might well have stronger legal protections than any country in the world, runs wire stories about Arar’s lawsuit on page 17. The White House, as far as I can tell, has not been asked about the case once. But God knows we needed 48 hours of hand-wringing over Howard Dean’s Iowa caucus speech.
Some days you just want to give up.
Won’t this blog pretty much ruin your chance for getting a summer job with the DOJ immigration bureau?
1. Don’t want it.
2. Note that I don’t use my last name.
2. Already rejected anyway.
4. My political leanings are fairly obvious from my resume (not only extracurriculars but jobs), and presumably they can google.
Yes, fortunately freedom of the press is still alive and well in Canada, and I think you’re right about the O’Niel search backfiring on the RCMP. Especially since it happened the same day as this court decision:
http://tinyurl.com/2mn45
“The same day as police were sifting through O’Neill’s drawers, Ontario Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto was making a landmark ruling in a separate case.
In a decision giving strong support to journalists’ right to protect confidential sources of information, she noted that many cases of government wrongdoing, from Watergate to RCMP mischief in Quebec in the 1970s, came to light because of such leaks to reporters.
The case involved a story about a document leaked to National Post reporter Andrew McIntosh in the “Shawinigate” affair. Taking note of “the fundamental importance of a free press in a democratic society,” Justice Benotto quashed a search warrant served against the reporter. She said, in her written judgement, that “society’s interest here, in protecting the confidentiality (McIntosh) promised, outweighs the benefits of disclosing the document.”
Katherine,
First of all kudos to you for the link on the Christian Science Monitor site as well as general congratulations and a salute for the work you’ve done.
Thanks for the link to the Center for Constitutional Rights page with the PDF file of Arar’s complaint in the lawsuit. I noted that he is also suing under the Torture Victim’s Protection Act. The current president’s father signed it into law.
You know your country’s leaders are not doing so good with world public opinion when lines like these appear in newspaper articles (in the news section, not opinion):
“The legislation, ironically, was introduced by U.S. President George W. Bush’s father.”