OTTAWA, 27 January 2007 — Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday apologized to a dual Canadian-Syrian citizen wrongly accused of terror links and jailed in Syria for a year after being deported from the United States.
“On behalf of the government of Canada, I apologize to you...for any role Canadian officials may have played in your terrible ordeal,” Harper told Maher Arar, adding he hoped he would receive a fair compensation.
Harper said that the Canadian government disagreed with the position taken by Washington on the issue and had asked for Arar to be removed from the US watch list of terror suspects.
Arar had sought 37 million Canada dollars in compensation from Ottawa for its complicity in his detention in New York while in transit from Tunisia to his home in Canada in September 2002.
Arar had initially sued Ottawa for C$400 million, a figure he later cut to C$37 million. Separately CTV said Ottawa would also pay Arar’s C$2 million legal bills.
He was deported to Syria where he was jailed for nearly a year and allegedly tortured.
The case pitted Ottawa against Washington over US treatment of terror suspects, provoked outrage from human rights groups in both countries and led to the resignation in December of Canada’s top cop, RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli.
Arar, a 36-year-old software engineer, was cleared of terror ties by a public inquiry in September, but has been was left shattered by the experience and struggles with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said on Tuesday that Arar should be able to travel where he wanted and promised to keep pressing Washington to have him removed from the security watch list.
David Wilkins, the US ambassador to Canada, replied that “it’s a little presumptuous for him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country.”
US officials say Arar will remain on their list because of unspecified information possessed by law enforcement agencies. Arar is also suing the United States for damages.
