U.S. says Canada placed Arar's name on 'terrorist list'
Maher Arar has received an answer to one of his questions about how he landed in a Syrian prison. It comes in a letter that was released Thursday by U.S. officials.
"It basically confirms my suspicions and my lawyer's suspicions about the involvement of Canadian officials in all of this," said Arar.
The letter says "Mr. Arar's name was placed on a terrorist lookout list based on information received from Canada ..."
That's the first official confirmation from the U.S. that Arar was in their sights solely because of Canadian security intelligence.
It says further that "the decision to remove Mr. Arar ... was made by U.S. government officials based on our own assessment of the security threat."
Arar was detained at JFK Airport in New York in September 2002. U.S. authorities then deported him to his native Syria instead of back to Canada.
He was held for a year in a Syrian prison, interrogated and tortured, he says.
Highly censored RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) documents provided to the inquiry looking into what happened to the Ottawa man have confirmed the agencies shared information about Arar with U.S. authorities.
The federal government is under pressure to release more details. But the minister responsible says that won't happen if the information means breaching national security.
"It is my responsibility to ensure that the collective security is not called into question or undermined by any process," said Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Anne McLellan.
A U.S. congressman has demanded the U.S. State Department reveal all. But the State Department is refusing to co-operate with the Canadian inquiry.