Canada has charged a Syrian intelligence officer with torturing Maher Arar, the Canadian whose 2002 rendition to Syria by U.S. authorities became a cause célèbre.
The criminal charge against Col. George Salloum is reportedly the first of its kind in Canada and marks a formal acknowledgment that Arar was tortured after the U.S. handed him over on suspicion of terrorist links. An earlier official Canadian inquiry declared Arar innocent of any such links.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who brought the charge against Salloum, are calling for him to be extradited to Canada. Salloum allegedly oversaw Arar’s torture in Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison.
Arar’s wife, Monia Mazigh, who has acted as the family’s public representative, praised the move in an interview, calling the charges “a big step in the right direction… We need to see more accountability happening in Canada, in the U.S., in Jordan and in Syria. The ones who tortured and the ones who helped these horrible acts to happen should face justice.”
“My husband and my family suffered tremendously all these years,” she added. “Extraordinary rendition is a horrible tool that has been used by the U.S. government in an attempt to make torture legal and acceptable.”
On September 26, 2002, as Arar prepared to board a connecting flight at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, on his way home to Montreal from a family vacation in Tunisia, Arar was detained by U.S. authorities and taken in for questioning. Arar would be held for almost two weeks in the U.S. without charge before being flown to Jordan and handed over to authorities there. He was then turned over to Syria.
Arar was later revealed to have been falsely branded as an Al Qaeda member. His ordeal became perhaps the best-known example of “extraordinary rendition,” a shadowy U.S. program in which suspected terrorists are extradited from one foreign country to another in order to be interrogated and prosecuted. In recognition of Arar’s suffering, the Canadian government in 2007 apologized and gave him a $10 million settlement.
The U.S. government has refused to take any similar measures, and Canadian authorities today left unaddressed the role that top U.S. officials are believed to have played in orchestrating Arar’s rendition. In 2004, lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights brought a lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, and other high-ranking officials for conspiring to send Arar to Syria to be tortured. Ashcroft was accused of being “responsible for making the decision to remove Mr. Arar to Jordan and Syria,” and Mueller was accused of having “removed Mr. Arar to Syria”; each was sued in both their official and individual capacities. The case was dismissed in 2006, and again in 2008, after the government invoked the state secrets privilege to claim potential adverse implications to national security if details of Arar’s rendition and torture were to be revealed. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled against hearing his appeal, and his case has languished ever since.
Jamil Dakwar of the ACLU says that more needs to be done to address the role of U.S. government officials in Arar’s torture. “As part of the process of providing Mr. Arar his right to truth, the U.S. government should, as a matter of obligation, open an investigation into the responsibility of U.S. officials in his mistreatment,” Dakwar said. “This episode has never been credibly or independently investigated in the United States. If there is evidence of lawbreaking, including complicity in torture, the individuals responsible need to be held criminally responsible, and there needs to be an apology and reparations provided to the victim.”
“National security” is pathetic excuse for evading justice. The quickest path to real security for the US administration would be to remove those criminal elements from power, and demonstrate to the rest of the world a willingness for transparency and reform. Instead they keep bolstering their image as tyrants, and wonder why their “hearts and minds” campaign is so ineffective.
To paraphrase Sgt. Schultz (of” Hogan’s Hero’s” fame), the US “knows nothing, hears nothing, does nothing”, someone is actually acknowledged to ” torture” someone is quite a feat. In the land of plenty all is well for no one will ever be held accountable for all the war atrocities in the middle east. I just wish the elected officials would see what is and was going on and acknowledge it.
A modicum of sympathy for the Canadians, please! Having paid $10 million in damages, it was only necessary that some action be taken to deflect attention from themselves. Cowering, as they do, in the shadow of the US, they cannot very well point any fingers at us, can they? And moreover, it simply would not sit well with the Canadian electorate were they to prosecute one of their own. So, being the practical Commonwealth nation that they are, they did the next best thing, which is to say the third best thing, which was to accuse someone who, practically speaking, cannot be extradited. That way Harper gets to wring his hands to the gentle applause of his followers and nods of approval from the White House, Pentagon, Justice Department and, most of all, Langley.
Ah, yes, The Harper Government’s Mounties…covering u their own malfeasance by pointing out someone else’s.
We sent Arar to Syria, knowing that he would be tortured. But Assad is a beast who tortures people and must resign before the Syrian Civil War may be resolved and a failed state firmly established?
The pathetic hypocrisy of wanting to punish a Syrian torturer–when it was the Harper government that most certainly facilitated Arar’s being sent to Syria in the first place. Harper is to Canada what GW Bush was to USA. “We want to punish the little guy over there in Syria for what we arranged”. It all amounts to political posturing by Harper who loves Israel and hates Syria (because Israel told him to).
I heard Monia Mozigh on CBC talking about how important this is to her family, and I am glad for that. At the same time, it was hard to listen to the RCMP interviewee pat the RCMP on the back about this when it was… the RCMP that handed Arar to the Americans, who handed him over to the Syrians. Also on the CBC this morning was a report about the latest ICC trial, of a Congolese man nicknamed “The Terminator”. Syrians do bad things and face international warrants. Congolese do bad things and face international criminal tribunals. Maybe somebody as light skinned as a Serbian every once in a while, too. But Americans? Canadians? Naaaaaaahhhhh……
Sorry for torturing you but here’s a truck full of cash – this’ll make us even… Err no, I don’t think so. No one seems to have learned anything from it and Adar can eat all the caviar he wants but he’s still been ministerially raped. Revolutions are the only way forward from this backwardass of a political travesty we call government.
“As part of process of providing Mr. Arar his right to truth, the U.S. government should, as a matter of obligation, open an investigation into the responsibility of U.S. officials in his mistreatment,” Dakwar said
BWAHAHAHAHAHA…HOHOHOHOHOHOHO..HAHAHAHAHA…HAHAHA..HAHA… US officials should, as a matter of “obligation”..open an investigation..into the “responsibility” of US officials for torture of a human being. right.
When pigs fly. After the so called Senate “torture report” came out, there “should” have been a US coast to coast civil outrage, if not 1 million armed gun owners surrounding WDC ready to drag these insidious war criminals out of their granite palaces and burn them alive in the streets, as no one in the USG will do a fucking thing to hold these depraved, sadistic barbarians accountable.
But noooooooooooooooooooo. Half this nation believes torture is A-OK!
I don’t know what happened to this country since WW11, but I do know this. It’s not the same nation that prosecuted the Nazi’s at Nuremberg was. The US of A BECAME the same as the Germany that stood by and watched without shame nor revulsion, the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis in the German peoples name. Meanwhile, the Military/Industrial/Plutocracy complex has taken control of the moral narrative through propaganda, lies, and virtual abandon of those values millions of American soldiers gave their lives to protect. And here we are. Today. A shameless, degenerate nation of cowards who fail to understand it has now become the UNITED STATES OF DEPRAVITY. Period.
Until the shameless citizens of this country, finally see what is happening before their very eyes, and stand up to these vile, sadistic, morally defunct animals in our government, and virtually FORCE accountability by virtue of collective armed insurrection.. the Deep State will continue it’s trajectory towards Fascist Totalitarianism. And now that the Surveillance State has become exactly that Senator Church prophetically warned us about, we are free falling towards the bottom of the tyranny abyss to which there will be NO ESCAPE. Just look around. Massive, ubiquitous surveillance, the police state, the Banker/Corporate control of the government, the total collapse of the middle class, Drones, which are NOW being armed… look around. The only question left is when will the USG starts kicking in doors to confiscate every gun in this nation. THAT will be the day this nation must decide their fate. One thing is blindingly clear. Should they decide to cowardly concede to the coming tyranny, our great grandchildren will SPIT ON OUR GRAVES. I pray this will not be the case. In the meantime, FUCK the USG. It has lost it’s Mandate of Heaven.
See my comment above, I agree about the US Govt.,”when pigs fly”, the US has committed countless war crimes and will never be held accountable. I am chuckling about the outrage the right wing extremists express over the “sale of fetal tissue” as murder but can invade two countries in the middle east kill over a million real people displace over a million more and sleep well in their nice comfortable homes at night. Ahhh… the good ole USA!
Why not George W Bush and Dick Cheney?
Exactly. The MOST guilty war criminals are those giving the orders.
Why not Kill List Obama? He authorized the murder of an American citizen AND his 16 yr old son. Notwithstanding the vaporization of thousands of innocent human beings by virtue of Drone delivered Hellfire missiles. He is the poster child of modern psychopathic war criminals. While Bush/Cheney were run of the mill monsters by virtue of their lying us into Iraq, and starting the illegal surveillance state, they didn’t target American citizens, although, they are personally responsible for the death of 5k American and 100k+ Iraqi lives in the war, AND the implementation of the torture program. So yeah, them too.
However, should an entity come along, with jurisdiction by virtue of being a more powerful legal imperialism, just happen to kick the US governments ass, while carrying the moral banner of human rights and a legal mandate to prosecute US war criminals,..ie… the civilian winners of a bloody civil war.. the list of US perpetrators of war crimes and their accomplices would fill a book. In that case, I would suggest a quick, mass trial, which upon conviction, a mass firing squad would be in order. And I’d trade the balance of my Social Security for a front row seat. I would hope though, that John Rodriquez would be the first in line. A forced requirement for their families to be in the court room/firing squad witness seats would be nice touch too. Lest their denial follow them through their lives.
Unfortunately, given the current and growing vacuum of morals in this country, unless some event occurs to which this nation all of a sudden decides it better fall on it’s knees and pray for forgiveness..I don’t see it happening.
Meanwhile…the poster child for Shamelessness in pop entertainment continues her adolescent public assault on decency while proving a talentless, clueless moron can make a million bucks entertaining the nations halfwits and idiots. Ms Moral Decay herself..one Miley the Dolt Cyrus. unfuckingbelievable. Living proof Barnum’s most well known axiom is a massive fucking understatement.
…but then we couldn’t shuffle them out on the “talk shows”, so as to get their advice on all matters.
…but then our esteemed media couldn’t shuffle them out on the “talk shows”, so as to get their advice on all matters.
Canada was complicit with the US in torturing Arar by giving him 10 million says just that and continues to this day another instance is the child soldier that america held in Guantamano Cuba and tortured for 10 yrs and Canada refusal to take back.
The USG outsources torture. It has probably stopped doing so with Syria since the vilification of Assad began in 2005 but the Canadians are remiss if they don’t at least attempt to extradite some ‘Americans’ for similar crimes. If the Canadians had any guts, they would stop supporting the USG’s wars and tend to their own affairs.
so true! they should request for the extradition of a lot of US officials
Thanks for reporting this, Mr. Hussein. Torture is indeed a stain on whoever perpetuates it. the U. S. needs to come clean of this NOW and hold the torturers and enablers accountable.
My best to the courageous Mr. Arrar and his family.
Just goes to show that the hypocrisy and cowardice of high US executive branch officials, and some members of the US Supreme Court, knows no bounds on the issue of torture.
I just wish Ashcroft, Mueller, Ridge, Yoo, Bybee, Cheney et al and anybody else that was complicit in rendition and torture would step foot outside the US and some foreign nationals had the balls/sand/ovaries to arrest them and prosecute them accordingly. Particularly a group of nations constituting of our nominal “allies” just to see if the US would have the temerity to retaliate against any of them for upholding the “rule of law” that America so hypocritically claims to be the biggest defender of all over the globe.
Next to the near eradication of the indigenous peoples of the US, slavery, Jim Crow, using atomic weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the Vietnam and Iraq wars, torturing a couple thousand human beings seems almost like an insignificant drop in the ol’ historical immoral depravity bucket for the US of A. The sheer scale and magnitude of those atrocities just blows my mind most days. I might have some level of respect for my nation if the US government would officially come out, admit they were wrong, apologize and try to make amends to those they’ve harmed. But they won’t. Not ever apparently. It’s a disgusting form of cowardice in my opinion to be afraid to admit you are wrong. And it’s a scary sign of collective sociopathy or psychopathy if we can’t understand that what we did was wrong.
How we as a people, nation and government can have so many monumentally immoral stains on our collective soul, and still delude ourselves into thinking we are somehow better or more exceptional than any nation in history–is completely beyond me. What exactly in America’s history, with the exception of assisting other nations to defeat the Nazis, has America ever really done for the world but deal death and destruction in the name of its “interests”? I really can’t fathom what “good” we have done in our history that could possibly counterbalance the horrible horrible shit we’ve been doing all over the globe since our inception. The calculus really is beyond me I suppose and some days it really is shameful to be an American.
At the end of WWII Truman needed help getting re-elected and he turned to a couple of wealthy Zionist donors. His re-election dues involved the creation of Israel and America has been locked in that cesspool ever since.
Israel fully embraces torture, our police are routinely trained by Israelis, and that mindset is evident throughout the streets of America; shoot the snakes.
Gee, if the Col. needs to be extradited I wonder who else needs to be brought to justice? So much for the rule of law.
The Assad regime is cruel and despicable, yet even they had the decency to release Maher Arar after they found he was innocent.
That minuscule baseline of humanity eludes the Obama administration who continues to hold many Guantanamo detainees that by its own reckoning were cleared for release years ago (in many cases, just in the wrong place at the wrong time, abducted by some Afghan warlord and sold for a profitable bounty to gullible US forces).
In 2014, there were at least 78 in such a situation, more than half the remaining 149 detainees.
The only legal consequence of torture has been to those who reported it, never to those who authorized or committed it.
No surprise the U.S. has been silent. By refusing to prosecute Bush administration officials, the current administration has de facto decriminalized torture.