Maher Arar

Arar #20

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1. Juliet O’Neill says that “sources are drying up” in the case after the search on her house. 2. There is increasing political pressure on Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin to order a public investigation. 3. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the fact that “Arar and his family are on welfare. He is charged … Read more

Arar #19: the legal complaint

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This is the legal complaint, in PDF form, in the lawsuit Arar just filed against Ashcroft et. al. If anyone familiar with this area of law can guess whether it has any chance of success, or at least not to be dismissed before discovery, please let me know. New information/allegations: 1. In addition to the … Read more

Arar # 18: Guilt by association

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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 … Read more

Arar #17: Daily update

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Lots of developments today: 1. Lo and behold, some U.S. press coverage. 60 minutes II did a pretty thorough story on this case last night; you can read the summary here. It’s not half bad, especially by the standards of TV news. The most interesting parts: a) They spoke to that Syrian diplomat, Imad Moustapha. … Read more

Arar #16: Juliet O’Neill

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They went after the Canadian reporter for writing this story, it seems. I don’t know if she’s been arrested yet, but they’ve said they intend to charge her. (I posted some excerpts, before, then deleted them….I’m sure this is being paranoid, as the Canadian press is displaying the link prominently. But on further reflection I’d … Read more

Arar #15: I try to get out, and they pull me back in

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Ok, so that last post wasn’t the finale after all. Two updates: 1. Someone pointed out that I should mention that Canada and the U.S. recently signed an agreement that the Martin and Bush administrations say will prevent this from ever happening again. But Arar’s lawyers are distinctly unimpressed, as am I. From the link … Read more

Arar #14: A Plea for Bipartisanship in “Interesting Times”

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So some of you must have wondered why I’ve spent so much time and effort blogging about the Arar case. In part it’s because I used to be a reporter and it’s fun to keep those skills from getting rusty. In part it’s a quest for links (precious links!). In part it’s because I’m going on extended blogging hiatus very soon, and I wanted to make sure I did something worthwile before I did.

But mainly it’s because think it’s such an incredibly important, and under-reported story.

There have been a lot of limits on civil rights since September 11. Some of them are probably necessary, but some are not; some are more or less benign, but some are dangerous. Although you hear most often about the Patriot Act, most of the most controversial and severe changes were made by the executive branch without prior authorization or supervision by Congress. Many of these changes were made in secret.

You can blame the Bush administration or not, as you choose–you can guess my position. But in all honesty, Congress and the public have not made a strong effort to find out what was happening, or tell the President what he could and could not do. (A notable exception to this is the Senate Judiciary committee’s insistence on some revisions of, and time to consider the Patriot Act.)

I don’t think this is because we’re willing to allow anything, as long as there’s any chance it would keep us safer. I think most Americans would not accept what happened to Maher Arar, if they knew of it. But we don’t know, and we tend to give our leaders the benefit of the doubt when the country is in danger. I suspect it’s much easier for most people to imagine the next catastrophic terrorist attack if we don’t go far enough, than it is to imagine that someone might end up being tortured because we go too far.

This is a rare case where the veil of secrecy has been lifted. We don’t know all the details or explanations, but we know that something terrible happened. Our government took a man from an airport in New York City and handed him over to Syria, where he was tortured for 10 months. I think I’ve made a decent case that he was probably innocent; that this was done with the knowledge and approval of fairly important government officials; and that this was not some freak accident or isolated occurrence. This happened, and there is no reason to believe it will not happen again. (We are less chummy with Syria these days, but that may change and there is never any shortage of nasty regimes in the world. And the agreement with Canada about this case is incomplete, and only applies to Canadian citizens anyway.)

As Ted Barlow said last November, “I support the vigorous investigation and prosecution of terrorists and terrorist suspects. But if this isn’t over the line, then there is no line.” It is not acceptable to me for my country to send people to be tortured on scant evidence, or on evidence gained from other torture sessions. I don’t believe it makes my family any safer in the long run, and even if it did I would not support it.

Maybe that’s not what happened. I’ve looked at this very carefully, and it seems the most likely explanation to me, but I could always be wrong. But I think it is beyond dispute that we need an investigation.

Yes, it might damage Bush politically, and no, I would not shed any tears over that. But I think it would lead to Ashcroft’s replacement at most, and the public will not blame Bush too much for overreacting in the name of protecting us from terrorists. Anyway, some things have to matter more than politics. These are dangerous times, and historic times–surely we can manage to agree on something more important than a do-not-call registry.

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Arar #13: Degrees of Separation–Analysis/Speculation

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This is speculation on my part, and should be treated as such. I want to emphasize that, because these are serious charges.

But: it seems to me that the most likely explanation for how suspicion went from El-Maati, to Almalki, to Arar (and from either El-Maati or Almalki to Al-Buchi), is that a suspect confessed and named his associates (truly or falsely, but it’s not a source of information I’d ever rely on) under torture in Syria; Syria gave the information back to United States and Canadian intelligence; which asked Syria to detain and interrogate the next suspect; who confessed and named his associates (truly or falsely) under torture; and Syria gave the information back to the United States. and Canadian intelligence….etc.

Let me summarize my reasons for believing this:

1. As I noted before, the United States went to a fair degree of trouble, and probably broke the law, to deport Arar to Syria. I don’t think eating lunch one time with a suspected terrorist, or having a suspected terrorist sign your lease, normally rates an “extraordinary rendition”. There must have been something more.

2. The timing fits:
–Ahmad El-Maati was arrested in November 2001. Badr El-Maati says his son was tortured and forced to sign a false confession in Syria, before being transferred to Egypt in January of 2002. January 2002 was when the police (or CSIS, or whoever) executed the warrants against Almalki and his family, and questioned Arar’s wife about her husband.
–In April 2002, Arar has his U.S. work permit renewed without incident. In September 2002 he is taken into custody while changing planes, and the U.S. deems him too dangerous to send to Canada or Zurich. What has changed? INS incompetence is always a possibility, so perhaps they renewed his permit in error. But I think the more likely explanation is that Almalki was arrested in May, questioned about Arar under torture, and confessed to who knows what.
–Arwad Al-Buchi is also arrested after Almalki.

3. A few specific statements from U.S. and Canadian intelligence officials to the press:
–“Sources told CTV News the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has received the transcripts of the Syrian interrogation of Arar.” (link)
–“American officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the evidence was strong that Mr. Arar had associated with suspected Islamic militants over a long period in Canada. They say he confessed under torture in Syria that he had gone to Afghanistan for terrorist training, named his instructors and gave other intimate details.” (NY Times, 11/15/03, p. A4).

4. There have been other reports of U.S. intelligence collaborating with Syria, including:
— a Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker last year (which specifically mentions a plot on targets in Ottawa).
–This, from an NBC Nightly News report on September 5, 2002:

FRED FRANCIS reporting:

In the Syrian capital, where a dictatorship has ruled for decades, where most people resent the US for branding Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism, virtually no one would believe that the CIA has made an ally of the Syrian secret police. Earlier this year, in the Persian Gulf, US troops were saved from an al-Qaeda attack because of information from Syria. Dr. Georges Jabbour often speaks unofficially for Syria.

Mr. GEORGES JABBOUR (Former Syrian Advisor): We supply the United States with any information we have on terrorist activities of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations that we consider terrorists. And this does not mean that we agree with the United States on what she considers to be terrorism and terrorists.

FRANCIS: In fact, the information from Bashar Assad’s government is so golden, that the US is cutting Syria a break on illicit Iraqi oil. In exchange for continuing information to the CIA, Washington is really looking the other way as Syria continues to import as much as 200,000 barrels of Iraqi crude oil each day. The oil from Iraq’s Kirkuk fields is flowing in an old, unused pipeline, according to US Officials. Syria denies it, but senior US officials say Syria is lying. And Syria is paying Iraq only $14 a barrel, half the market price. A $3 billion-a-year bonanza for Syria and Iraq. Money, a senior US official says, is going into Saddam Hussein’s slush fund.

Mr. JEFFREY SCHOTT (Institute for International Economics): He certainly needs to have money to support his elite troops and to keep them–keep them happy.

FRANCIS: The US is looking the other way, US officials say, because the man who recruited some of the 9/11 hijackers, Mohammed Zammar, is now in a Syrian prison, and the CIA has access to him. Zammar is being questioned here at Syrian secret police headquarters. US sources say he is talking as are two dozen other al-Qaeda members also imprisoned.

Mr. ITAMAR RABINOVICH (Former Israeli Ambassador to US): I would say that the questioning in Damascus is going to be more brutal and more effective than in Guantanamo or in Washington.

Oddly enough, until Arar each suspect travelled to Syria voluntarily. Which lessens our culpability to a degree, but only to a degree. It’s one thing to cooperate with foreign intelligence services, including those of very nasty regimes. That’s a necessarily evil. It’s another thing to tell them which Canadian citizens to arrest, and look the other way as they torture those people, and rely on the information “confessed” under torture to deport other Canadian citizens into their hands. I don’t know that that’s what happened, but it seems a real possibility. It needs to be investigated, on both sides of the border.

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Arar #12: Degrees of Separation–Facts

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(sorry for the delay–I am ridiculously nervous about Iowa & couldn’t concentrate. As promised–this is my best attempt at summarizing the chain of associations and events that led to Maher Arar’s deportation to Syria. I will give my analysis of this information in the next post.)

1. INTRODUCTION
Shortly after Maher Arar was returned to Canada but before he spoke to the press, Canadian officials told CTV News that:

while in custody in Syria for almost a year, Canadian Maher Arar provided information to the Syrians about al Qaeda cells operating in Canada.

They say Arar also provided information about the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic group linked to Osama bin Laden, and information about four other Canadians: Arwad al-Bushi, a Syrian-born Canadian being held in a Syrian jail; Abdullah al Malki, another Syrian-born Canadian being held in Syria; Ahmad Abou-el-Maati, an Eyptian Canadian in custody in Egypt; and Mohamed Harkat, born in Algeria, who is being held under an anti-terrorism security certificate at the Ottawa Detention Centre….

Sources told CTV News the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has received the transcripts of the Syrian interrogation of Arar. (Source: CTV transcript, 10/24/03.

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Arar #11: Breaking News

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A story just broke in Canada that, if confirmed, may explain how this whole mess started: In late August, 2001, U.S. border guards discovered a single sheet of paper — a schematic map of Ottawa marking government buildings and nuclear research facilities — in an 18-wheeler driven by a man named Ahmad Abou El-Maati. During … Read more

Arar #10

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(10th in a series on a Canadian citizen who was deported by the United States to Syria and apparently tortured there. Previous posts in the series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.)

When I first heard about the Maher Arar case, sometime in November, I assumed it was a low level screw-up with tragic consequences, that went something like this: This guy is on a terrorism watch list for some reason, we don’t have enough evidence to arrest him, there is some miscommunication or spat with Canada, and he has dual citizenship. An immigration or homeland security official sends him to Syria because he can, and because it’s the easiest way to “fix” the problem (perhaps there’s an element of racism in this, too). And the administration goes into its customary “we are infallible so therefore we didn’t do anything wrong” mode.

This is not what happened. For reasons I cannot understand (I’ll take my best guess in the next post) the United States government seems to have gone to a great deal of trouble to deport Arar to Syria, and the decision was made by high ranking officials at the Department of Justice, the INS, and possibly the intelligence services. Evidence of this:

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Arar #8: Guilt and Innocence, part A

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Preliminary question: does it even matter whether Arar was guilty or innocent? If his allegations are true, what the government did was illegal and immoral regardless of guilt or innocence. But I think if he’s innocent it’s that much worse, and that much more likely that this has happened before and will happen again.

So, let me summarize the evidence as best I can. I’m listing the claims and counter-claims in the order they appeared in press accounts, since that may be relevant in determining sources’ credibility.

This is a very very long post, so I’m going to leave my conclusions about Arar’s guilt/innocence and about why he might have been suspected even if innocent for a separate post. And if you don’t have time to read the whole thing I recommend items #3, #7, #8, and 9.

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Arar interlude

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Pretending I’m a reporter again was too fun, so I did one more Google News search. There’s an article about Jean Chretien in the National Review that mentions the Arar case. I was interested in what a right wing magazine’s take on it would be, wondering if they’d give a plausible defense of the administration … Read more

Arar #5

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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 … Read more

Arar #4

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1. From another Washington Post story on the Arar case, from November 5, 2003: Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Arar case fits the profile of a covert CIA “extraordinary rendition” — the practice of turning over low-level, suspected terrorists to foreign intelligence services, some of which are known to torture prisoners…. … Read more

Arar #3

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Here’s a useful timeline of the case from CBC News.

And here’s a Washington Post article from November 19, 2002, with more information on who approved Arar’s removal to Syria. (Thanks to reader Slartibartifast for the link.):

Then-Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson, in his capacity as acting attorney general, signed the highly unusual order, citing national security and declaring that to send the man, Maher Arar, home to Canada would be “prejudicial to the interests of the United States,” according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity…..

A couple of questions/comments:

1) Based on these two DOJ web pages, the Deputy Attorney General is the second highest ranking person in the entire Justice Department.

(From the DOJ job description:“The Deputy Attorney General is authorized to exercise all the power and authority of the Attorney General….In the absence of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General acts as the Attorney General.”)

So this was approved at a very high level. This cuts both ways. On the one hand, it is very upsetting to know that the second most important person in the Justice Department, acting as the Attorney General, would do this. On the other hand, it suggests that this power is reserved for unusual cases, not something that happens to everyone who is on the watch list and can be easily deported to a suitably nasty country. It also makes me wonder why they suspected Arar, and whether it was more than the unimpressive connections that Pyle cites.

(The article says “One U.S. official said yesterday that when apprehended at the airport, Arar had the names of “a large number of known al Qaeda operatives, affiliates or associates” in his wallet or pockets.” If that’s true it could have been a routine watch-list stop that became something more. I don’t think this would be acceptable even if Arar was guilty of something, or if he wasn’t guilty but they had good reason to believe it was. But it would be less flagrantly unacceptable.)

I do not know how unusual/routine it is for the Deputy Attorney General to act as the Attorney General. The thought immediately crossed my mind “why wasn’t Ashcroft acting as the Attorney General?” but for all I know the Deputy has the night shift, or Ashcroft was sick that week.

2) “then-Deputy Attorney General.” Larry D. Thompson is no longer Deputy Attorney General. He stepped down on August 11, 2003, and is now a visiting professor* at the University of Georgia law school.

His departure appears to have been voluntary–there’s a very complimentary press release here, including ‘quotations’ from Ashcroft:

“Larry was more than a Deputy Attorney General to me. He was my partner. He worked shoulder to shoulder with me at a time when history necessitated dramatic changes in the way the Justice Department did its job.”

(etc.)

Of course it’s possible that he was privately asked to resign over this case. (If so I wouldn’t have included that quotation in the press release, which really made me cringe. But that may be my bias showing through.) August 11 is before the story really broke. But it’s shortly after a human rights group reported that Arar was being tortured, and Arar’s wife asked Canada to recall its ambassador from Syria. (August 6th and 7th).

(There’s plenty of other good stuff in the Post story, which I may get to in a later post. Very much worth a read.)

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Arar #2

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Here you go, the fruits of my first googling. I do an awful lot of quoting–to make it clear what are my words and what are not, I have tried to italicize the text of all quotations.

1. The transcript of Arar’s November 4 statement to the media is probably the best place to start. Not surprisingly, it is graphic.

2. The SF Chronicle editorial on the government’s basis for suspecting Arar is disputed. Anonymous U.S. and Canadian intelligence officials told The Canadian Post in December that they were “100% sure” that Arar had been at an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Here is a CTV summary of the allegations.

Excerpts: “The officials allege Arar travelled to Pakistan in the early 1990’s, then entered Afghanistan to train at the al Qaeda base known as the Khaldun camp.” (“Graduates” of that camp were involved in the 1993 WTC bombing and the 1998 embassy bombings.) “Arar, 33, says he confessed to travelling to Afghanistan only after being tortured in Syria. He now insists he’s never been to that country and that he’s not a member of al Qaeda.”

“He now insists” might imply that Arar has changed his story–but in his initial statement he denies connection with Al Qaeda, denies ever going to Afghanistan, and says that they tortured a confession out of him. I believe this was before the allegations by the anonymous intelligence officers; here is is the relevant quotation.

Then on the third day, the interrogation lasted about 18 hours. They beat me from time to time and make me wait in the waiting room for one to two hours before resuming the interrogation.

While in the waiting room I heard a lot of people screaming. They wanted me to say I went to Afghanistan. This was a surprise to me.

They had not asked about this in the United States. They kept beating me so I had to falsely confess and told them I did go to Afghanistan. I was ready to confess to anything if it would stop the torture. They wanted me to say I went to a training camp.

Pyle (the author of the SF Chronicle editorial) does not give sources for the explanation for Arar’s presence on the watch list. My guess is that they come from these passages in Arar’s statement:

They said they wanted to know why I did not want to go back to Syria. I told them I would be tortured there. I told them I had not done my military service; I am a Sunni Muslim; my mother’s cousin had been accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and was put in prison for nine years.

and

They asked me about Abdullah Almalki, and I told them I worked with his brother at high-tech firms in Ottawa, and that the Almalki family had come from Syria about the same time as mine. I told them I did not know Abdullah well, but had seen him a few times and I described the times I could remember.

I told them I had a casual relationship with him.

They were so rude with me, yelling at me that I had a selective memory. Then they pulled out a copy of my rental lease from 1997. I could not believe they had this.

I was completely shocked. They pointed out that Abdullah had signed the lease as a witness. I had completely forgotten that he had signed it for me — when we moved to Ottawa in 1997, we needed someone to witness our lease, and I phoned Abdullah’s brother, and he could not come, so he sent Abdullah.

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Maher Arar

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This article (via Brad DeLong, via Crooked Timber) is about the Maher Arar case. It outlines the basic story, which many of you will be familiar with: a Canadian citizen, changing planes at JFK, is deported to Syria where he is tortured for months and then released. (Arar is a joint Canadian-Syrian citizen but had not been to Syria for 16 years. I vaguely remember reading, though I do not have a cite for this, that the reason he’s a joint citizen is that Syria did not allow him to renounce his citizenship there.)

The article, an editorial by a Con. Law professor at Mount Holyoke, contains some new details, about exactly what happened to Arar,

So, they put Arar on a private plane and flew him to Washington, D.C. There, a new team, presumably from the CIA, took over and delivered him, by way of Jordan, to Syrian interrogators. This covert operation was legal, our Justice Department later claimed, because Arar is also a citizen of Syria by birth….

The Syrians locked Arar in an underground cell the size of a grave: 3 feet wide, 6 feet long, 7 feet high. Then they questioned him, under torture, repeatedly, for 10 months. Finally, when it was obvious that their prisoner had no terrorist ties, they let him go, 40 pounds lighter, with a pronounced limp and chronic nightmares.

and about what the government’s basis for suspicion was.

The Syrians believed that Arar might be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Why? Because a cousin of his mother’s had been, nine years earlier, long after Arar moved to Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported that the lease on Arar’s apartment had been witnessed by a Syrian- born Canadian who was believed to know an Egyptian Canadian whose brother was allegedly mentioned in an al Qaeda document.

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