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Canadian sues Ashcroft for deportation to Syria

A Syrian-born Canadian sued US Attorney General John Ashcroft on Thursday for deporting him to Syria as an al-Qaeda suspect and said government officials knew he would be tortured in a Damascus jail.

The lawsuit filed in Brooklyn federal court is the latest development in a case that has strained relations between the US and Canada, raised security and human rights issues and led to a new deportation deal between Ottawa and Washington.

Computer technician Maher Arar was arrested between international flights at Kennedy airport in New York in September 2002. He was interrogated for 13 days and expelled to Jordan and then Syria, where he said he was held for more than 10 months in a "dark, damp hole" and tortured.

Arar was freed in October last year and returned to Canada, but he is barred from the US. At a news briefing in New York to announce the lawsuit, Arar talked by speakerphone.

"I believe that the persons who sent me to Syria knew that I would be interrogated under torture there," said Arar, 33, who lives in Ottawa with his wife and two children. He has been unemployed since his return from Syria after years of working for a high-tech company.

Arar added that he had "never knowingly associated with terrorists" and that under brutal treatment in Syria, he "falsely confessed to my torturers."

One of his lawyers, Steven Watt, said: "Syria released him as an innocent man and an innocent man he remains today."

In a statement on Thursday, the US Department of Justice headed by Ashcroft said it believed Arar was a member of al-Qaeda, the radical Islamic group blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, plane strikes and other attacks.

The lawsuit named Ashcroft, Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge, FBI director Robert Mueller and a dozen other officials as defendants. It said Arar's deportation broke US and international laws against torture.

The Justice Department said its information about Arar could not be made public because it was classified.

"In removing Mr. Arar, we acted fully within law and applicable international treaties and conventions," it said.

Lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights said the suit was the first to challenge the government's "extraordinary renditions" program of keeping foreigners suspected of being a security risk out of the country.

"Federal officials removed Mr. Arar to Syria under the program precisely because Syria could use methods of interrogation to obtain information from Mr. Arar that would not be legally or morally acceptable in this country or other democracies," the lawsuit said.

It was filed on Arar's behalf by the center, which has been at the forefront of legal challenges to US detention and deportation policy of Muslim men since the Sept. 11 attacks.

In Canada on Wednesday, the story took another twist when police raided the office and home of Ottawa journalist Juliet O'Neill to investigate possible leaks of classified information about Arar. The probes prompted widespread media outrage.

Martin said he was "quite concerned" by the raids.
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