RCMP Watch

CTV.ca News Staff

The RCMP provided American authorities with inaccurate and misleading information that “very likely” led to Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar’s arrest and deportation, the federal inquiry into the case has concluded.

In the long-awaited 822-page report made public on Monday after more than two years of hearings, Justice Dennis O’Connor also absolved Arar of all suspicion of terrorist activity.

“I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada,” wrote the judge.

O’Connor said he found no evidence that any Canadian official played a direct role in Arar’s detention by American authorities in September 2002 or in the U.S. decision to deport him to Syria.

However, the RCMP were targeted in the report for passing on unfair information to U.S. authorities that “very likely” led to the arrest and deportation of the engineer.

“The RCMP provided American authorities with information that was inaccurate, portrayed him in an unfairly negative fashion and overstated his importance in the RCMP investigation,” O’Connor told a news conference on Monday.

Among other things, the RCMP erroneously described Arar to the Americans as “an Islamic extremist suspected of being linked to the al Qaeda terrorist network.”

The RCMP also described him as the “target” of a domestic anti-terrorist investigation in Canada when instead he was only a peripheral figure who had come under suspicion because he had been seen in the company of another man who was under surveillance.

“It is very likely that, in making the decision to detain and remove Mr. Arar to Syria, the U.S. authorities relied on information about Mr. Arar provided by the RCMP,” O’Connor concluded in the report.

He also noted that much of the information had not been double-checked to ensure its accuracy and reliability, which violated the Mounties’ usual rules for sharing information with foreign agencies.

“The RCMP provided American authorities with information about Mr. Arar, without attaching written caveats as required by RCMP policy, thereby increasing the risk of information would be used for purposes which the RCMP did not approve, such as sending Mr. Arar to Syria,” O’Connor told reporters.

While the judge avoided any formal findings of blame against specific Canadian officials, he suggested that the government study his report and take disciplinary action where it was warranted.

O’Connor recommended that Ottawa file formal protests with both the U.S. and Syrian governments over Arar’s treatment and also urged the federal government to offer Arar compensation.

“A compensation agreement could involve anything from an apology to an offer of employment or assistance in obtaining employment,” he said.

The judge also found “troubling questions” about the role played by Canadian officials in the cases of three other Arab-Canadians, Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin.

All were detained and tortured in Syria after travelling to the Middle Eastern country on personal business.

At a press conference after the report was released, Arar told reporters he likely would not even have been sent to Syria has the RCMP not sent inaccurate information to their American counterparts.

“That’s very important. I think we have to look at the conduct of Canadian officials as a whole.”

Nonetheless, he expressed satisfaction with the report and called for action.

“I wanted to repair my reputation. Today, Judge O’Connor has cleared my reputation,” he said. “I ask the prime minister to put these recommendations into effect without delay.”

O’Connor recommended a raft of changes aimed at preventing lapses he concludes led to the torture of Arar as a mistaken terrorism suspect.

Among the recommendations:

* O’Connor says the RCMP should take steps to improve familiarity with ethnic communities they might encounter.
* The report also calls on the Mounties to ensure that whenever they provide information to other departments and agencies in accordance with policies on relevance, reliability and accuracy, and in keeping with laws respecting privacy and human rights.
* O’Connor recommends the RCMP and CSIS review their policies governing how they supply information to foreign governments with questionable human rights records.
* He also urged the federal government to develop specific policies and training to address the situation of Canadians detained in countries where they are at risk of being tortured.

A separate report from O’Connor, which is due before the end of the year, will recommend the sort of watchdog that would best be able to oversee the RCMP’s national security activities.

Arar’s detention

Arar was detained in New York on Sept. 26, 2002 under suspicion that he had ties to al Qaeda.

After 13 days in detention, American authorities sent Arar to Jordan, and from there to Damascus, where he was imprisoned for almost one year.

An independent fact-finder has subsequently corroborated Arar’s claims that he was tortured by Syrian officials while in jail.

The telecommunications engineer, who was travelling with a Canadian passport at the time, also claims he was forced to make a false confession about his involvement in terrorist activities.

The hearings, which started in June 2004, have been headed by O’Connor and have seen more than 40 witnesses in an effort to establish what role Canadian agencies played in Arar’s ordeal.

To protect national security, one version of the report will be released publicly and another will remain classified. Both versions will have information censored to prevent exposing informants and countries that supplied sensitive material.

“He (Arar) has been the subject of a lot of notorious speculation… so he believes that if the full story is not published this will continue to fuel the rumours and he won’t be able to clear his name,” The Globe and Mail’s Jeff Sallot told CTV Newsnet on Monday regarding the censorship.

Arar, who recently moved from Ottawa to Kamloops, B.C. with his wife and two children, was in the nation’s capital on Monday to hear the report tabled in Parliament.

His lawyer, Julian Falconer, has requested that O’Connor recommend some kind of compensation in the case.

In a separate civil suit against the police services and federal agencies, the government has quietly agreed to begin negotiations with Arar after the report is released.

According to documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court in May, the government will send senior officials into mediation with Arar’s counsel in January.

Officials with Ottawa and Peel Regional police services will also hold talks with Arar’s counsel in the same month.

“Obviously compensation would be the end result if an agreement was arrived at,” said Falconer.

“This agreement to enter into a good-faith mediation represents probably the first promising step the government has taken towards making things right with Mr. Arar and his family.”

During the public testimony, RCMP investigators acknowledged that they knew Arar was to be held by U.S. officials in New York; however, they deny any role in the decision to deport him to Syria.

CSIS and Foreign Affairs have also come under fire for purportedly not doing enough to return Arar to Canada.