Last one for the day. These quotations are from a Toronto Star article on November 21, 2003, p. A13. I can’t find a link:
U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft publicly washed his hands of the Maher Arar affair yesterday, saying his department acted within the law because it accepted Syrian assurances the Ottawa man would not be tortured if he was sent back to his birthplace.
In seeking and receiving assurances from Syria that Arar would be treated humanely, Washington acted within domestic and international law, the U.S. justice department maintains.
“In removing Mr. Arar from the U.S., we acted fully within the law and applicable international treaties and conventions that guide the activities of the United States in settings like that,” Ashcroft said, the first official comment on the case from the Bush administration….
“I note the statement by the Syrian embassy … regarding the treatment of Mr. Arar,” Ashcroft said, “as that statement is fully consistent with the assurances that the United States government received prior to the removal of Mr. Arar.”
(journalist hat off, angry blogger hat on.)
Some good follow up questions might be:
1. Since the Syrian government is so trustworthy, why consider military action against them when we can simply ask them if they support Hezbollah? It might just be a silly misunderstanding!
2. Does the Justice Department plan to continue to accept Syria’s assurances that they will not torture people, or will they change that policy in view of Arar’s charges?
By the way, I didn’t Dowdify Ashcroft; that ellipsis is in the original article. I just do the “….”s to indicate when I’m skipping paragraphs; won’t do it to any quotations within the newspaper articles.
Maher Arar
Katherine at Obsidian Wings has three good posts up (one two three) about the Maher Arar case I mentioned yesterday. I’m feeling a little guilty about that post because I let my outrage over the administration’s treatment of allied citizens…
And worst of all the Canadian government and the Minister of Foreign Affairs deny any and all knowledge of their part in this outrageous situation.
It has come out both on 60 minutes and the Ottawa Citizen that the Canadian government was the instigator of all of this.