CSIS Didn't Want Arar Returned To Canada

In May and June 2003, the Canadian government intended to send a letter to Syria indicating that it spoke with "one voice"–seeking the powerful support CSIS and the RCMP–to call for Mr. Arar's release. But according to Justice O'Connor's report, CSIS "was uncomfortable" with a statement in the letter that there was "no evidence" that Mr. Arar had links to al-Qaeda. The agency argued "very strongly" against a letter that it saw as sending the wrong message to U.S. authorities. "CSIS wanted to make it clear to the Solicitor General that there was 'political jeopardy' in signing a joint letter and that bringing Mr. Arar back to Canada was going to be a political 'hot potato' with American authorities," Justice O'Connor wrote in the report, which cleared Mr. Arar and found that the Mounties had reason to view Mr. Arar only as a "person of interest" and not as a suspect. The report also found that inaccurate and misleading information that the RCMP sent to U.S. authorities "very likely" led to Mr. Arar's extraordinary rendition. Mr. Arar, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and recently moved from Ottawa to Kamloops, B.C, was wrongfully deported by U.S. authorities and detained for more than a year in Syria, where he was tortured and held in a coffin-sized cell. The Hill Times http://www.hilltimes.com/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2006/october/2/csis/&c=1 [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 4, 2006]

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