RCMP Watch

(Ottawa Citizen) - The RCMP has closed its criminal investigation into leaks of the Maher Arar file without laying any charges, according to media reports.

The criminal probe, which was dubbed Operation Soya, began five years ago, after documents were leaked to former Citizen reporter Juliet O’Neill, now with Canwest News Service.

The dossier outlined the RCMP investigation into Mr. Arar, a Syrian-born telecommunications engineer, who was detained at a New York airport in September 2002 by U.S. officers and eventually deported to Syria.

While in a Damascus prison for almost a year, Mr. Arar was routinely tortured, according to a Canadian commission that released its findings in September 2006.

Mr. Arar was cleared of terrorist links and subsequently awarded $10.5 million by the federal government.

In 2004, an Ontario court struck down portions of the Security of Information Act that was used to execute search warrants on Ms. O’Neill.