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I see that Maher Arar, the huckster who lied his way into $10.5 million of our tax dollars, has had less luck with the U.S. legal system than he had with ours. A U.S. appeals court threw out his nuisance claim against the U.S. government. Now, that's not quite fair of me, is it? I mean, it's not fair to Canada's legal system because, had Arar actually gone to trial here, his case would have been thrown out, too. Arar's testimony would have been torn to shreds; he would have wilted under cross-examination. He would have been proved the liar...

Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Accused terrorist Omar Khadr identified Maher Arar as someone he recognized who appeared at an al-Qaida-run "safe" house in Afghanistan, an FBI agent testified at a Guantanamo Bay military commission Monday. Robert Fuller said Khadr made the identification when he interrogated the Canadian-born terror suspect at Bagram in Afghanistan in October 2002.

OTTAWA — Embattled RCMP head Giuliano Zaccardelli has submitted his resignation, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today in question period. “Today Commissioner Zaccardelli submitted his resignation to me and I have accepted it,” Harper told the House of Commons. “The commissioner indicated to me that it would be in the best interest of the RCMP to have new leadership as this great organization faces the challenges of the future.” Harper made the announcement after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion asked the prime minister when he knew about the contradictory testimony Zaccardelli provided to a parliamentary committee about the Maher Arar case....

Terrorism and Security: Major Canadian Media Organizations Possibly a Haven for Single-Issue Activists Government policy analyst lodges request for investigation of lop-sided media coverage of two terrorism related cases. Poor journalism widespread while watchdog bodies ineffective or biased. (I-Newswire) - Literally millions of Canadians have read the newspapers or seen coverage of the cases of Muhammed Mahjoub, a suspected terrorist being held indefinitely on a secret service security certificate, and Maher Arar, also suspected of having terrorist connections. While Canadian media such as the CBC and the Canadian Press have provided ample opportunities for Maher Arar and Muhammed Mahjoub and...

The Canadian edition of Time Magazine has chosen Syrian born Maher Arar as its Newsmaker of the Year. The Ottawa Ontario resident landed at JFK International Airport in New York in September 2002 after returning from Tunisia where his wife has family. The Canadian citizen was detained in New York and then shipped off to his native Syria where he was detained and tortured for over a year before being released. After returning to Canada, Arar chose not to blend into the woodwork but forced the Canadian government to hold an inquiry into his arrest and detention and to examine...

If Canadians require further evidence why our allies in the war against terrorism no longer trust us, they need look no further than the Maher Arar case. This is the man U.S. authorities apprehended at Kennedy airport in New York last September, alleging he was an al-Qaeda operative. Mr. Arar is a Canadian citizen, but he also is a citizen of Syria and as such under U.S. immigration law -- Canadian law has a similar provision -- was subject to deportation to either Canada or Syria. U.S. authorities chose to send him to Syria. We can only guess why. At...

OTTAWA — When the prime minister unleashes his lap dogs to join a parliamentary pack attack, someone is about to die. Conservative MPs treated RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli with kid gloves during his first appearance before a parliamentary committee two months ago to explain his involvement in the Maher Arar affair. They dropped the gloves and savaged him during his second appearance on Tuesday, when he admitted to misleading MPs due to a severely flawed memory. It was an all-party Zach attack and when Stephen Harper stood in the Commons a few hours later, urging patience for ‘due process’ before...

The question that haunts the federal inquiry into Maher Arar's torture nightmare in Syria is whether Canada was behind it all. Did Canadian officials make it known to the United States that everyone would be better off if Mr. Arar, a citizen of Canada, were dispatched to his Syrian birthplace rather than sent back home to Ottawa? Paul Cellucci, then the U.S. ambassador to Canada, was unequivocal in a letter he wrote to this newspaper, published last Canada Day, correcting what he said was an error in an editorial. "I have never said or implied that 'Canadian security officials gave...

Fair use for education/discussion purposes: Yahoo! News News Home - Help AFP CIA renditions of terror suspects are 'out of control:' report Sun Feb 6, 5:57 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites)'s 'rendition' of suspected terrorists has spiralled 'out of control' according to a former FBI (news - web sites) agent, cited in a report which examined how CIA (news - web sites) detainees are spirited to states suspected of using torture. Michael Scheuer a former CIA counterterrorism agent told The New Yorker magazine "all we've done is create a nightmare," with regard...

EDMONTON -- When a certain former presidential candidate labeled Canada "Soviet Canuckistan," most people north of the 49th parallel dismissed it as the silly rant of a right-wing Yankee wacko. But a week and a half ago they all stopped laughing. Newspaper editors, columnists, pretty much the whole of the Canadian media, started making blunt comparisons between their country and the bad old USSR. The whole nation watched in shock while ten Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided a newspaper reporter's Ottawa bungalow at eight in the morning on January 21 and started rifling through all her belongings. Cameramen stood behind...

Qaeda Pawn, U.S. Calls Him. Victim, He Calls Himself. By CLIFFORD KRAUSS: November 15, 2003 OTTAWA — Maher Arar has been back from Syria for five weeks now, with his wife and two children in their simple apartment, earnestly pleading to all who will listen that he is an innocent casualty of the Bush administration's war on terror. As Mr. Arar tells it, American officials detained him on circumstantial evidence during what was supposed to be a brief stopover at Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002. Within days, they packed him off to Syria where, he says, he was locked...

U.S. detains, kicks out two Canadian Muslims By COLIN FREEZE From Saturday's Globe and Mail UPDATED AT 2:39 AM EDT Saturday, Sep. 13, 2003 Two moderate Islamic scholars were kicked out of the United States and sent back to Canada last night, after U.S. authorities detained them as suspected terrorists when they landed in Florida on the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Ahmad Kutty, 59, and Abdool Hamid, 37, are Canadian citizens affiliated with the Islamic Centre of Canada in Mississauga, Ont. They were flying to Orlando to lead an Islamic prayer service, but were intercepted by immigration agents...

Solicitor General Wayne Easter did not discount the possibility yesterday that rogue elements within the RCMP passed intelligence to American authorities that led to the arrest and deportation of an Arab-Canadian to Syria for suspected links to al-Qaeda. Mr. Easter said Prime Minister Jean Chrétien is taking seriously American assertions the RCMP tipped off U.S. authorities to arrest Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, last September when he arrived at New York's Kennedy Airport en route to Canada. Mr. Arar was carrying a Canadian passport when he was arrested and sent to a CIA debriefing station in Jordan before ending...