Canada pays $10.6 million to wronged Canadian-SyrianMaher Arar, the Canadian software engineer who was wrongfully accused of terrorism and deported to Syria where he was tortured, has been awarded 12.5 million Canadian dollars (10.6million US dollars), the Canadian government said Friday.
The payment is compensation for the Canadian government's role in the scandal, but fell short of the 37 million Canadian dollars for which Arar had been suing the Canadian government.
The Syrian-born Canadian citizen, then living in Ottawa, was detained by American officials, acting on a tip from Canadian police, at New York's JFK airport during a stopover on a flight from Tunisia to Montreal in September 2002.
Claiming that he had links to al-Qaeda, American officials deported Arar to Damascus, Syria, where he was imprisoned.
In August of 2003, the affair caused outrage in Canada when the London-based Syrian Human Rights Committee reported that Arar was being tortured during his detention.
Reacting to the public outcry, former prime minister Jean Chretien personally intervened with Syria to help obtain Arar's release in 2003.
Isn't it strange how the current administration as always despised the country of Syria, but when they thought they possibly had a known terrorist who 'had links to al-Qaeda', in custody, they sent him off to Syria to be tortured?
A) Why would we release a person who we thought had links to al-Qaeda only 12 months after 9/11?
And, B) why would we release him to a country that we are being told, 'harbors terrorists'? Wouldn't they be working together?
rawstory
