So Prime Minister Harper is going to complain about U.S. treatment of Arar.
This shuffling the Blame is nonsensical. To complain to a nation that is currently redefining its definition of torture, or so called “aggressive interrogation techniques”, that it deported a person to a nation that engages in torture is lame.
If the U.S. can’t define torture in their own areas of control, how are they to know what a “reasonable expectation that he was not going to be tortured” actually means.
So who is to blame? I will let you guess. Pass me another cop out there Mr Harper.
“Harper to complain about U.S. treatment of Arar”
Updated Fri. Oct. 6 2006 1:15 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Prime Minister Stephen Harper will launch a formal complaint to the United States about the way it handled the case of deported Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar, CTV News has learned.
CTV’s Craig Oliver, reporting from Ottawa, said Harper spoke with U.S. President George Bush on Friday and told him of Canada’s intentions.
“The government will be releasing that protest which will be in the form of a letter,” Oliver told Newsnet.
The protest will demand why the U.S. “took Arar — a Canadian citizen — and sent him to Syria, where he was tortured,” Oliver said.
Justice Dennis O’Connor released a report last month that exonerated Arar, and said he had been falsely accused of having links to terrorism.
False information provided by the RCMP led the U.S. to deport Arar to Syria, where he was tortured for 10 months.
RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli apologized last week to Arar for the force’s role in the matter. And Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said that he wrote to U.S. officials soon after the report’s release, asking them to clear Arar’s name.
U.S. officials said last week they believed Arar would likely not be tortured when they deported him to Syria.
“There were assurances that his treatment would meet the standards of the Geneva Conventions,” State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack told reporters last week. “We had to have a reasonable expectation that he was not going to be tortured or maltreated. We were able to assure ourselves of that.”
What Was I Trying To Say ? 