Canada asks US to remove Arar from no-fly lists

Canada formally asked the United States on Oct. 25 to remove former Canadian terror suspect Maher Arar from its no-fly list -- a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice publicly admitted Washington bungled the case. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said he has formally written his US counterpart, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, to strike Arar's name from any "lookout" lists that would prevent him from flying south of the border. In late September 2002, US authorities detained Arar, a Canadian citizen, who was on a flight from Zurich to Montreal. Accusing him of being a terrorist, they sent him to his native country of Syria instead of to Canada. Arar spent almost a year in Syrian custody. Over that time, the telecommunications engineer said Syrian agents tortured him into making false admissions about being an al-Qaida operative. Rice suggested that Arar would remain on US security watch lists -- despite the admission that US officials mishandled the case and despite a Canadian inquiry which cleared Arar of any links to terrorism. Day said that the government has taken every opportunity to convince US authorities that Arar is not a threat to US security. "At every diplomatic level from the prime minister to the president, from our foreign affairs minister to the secretary of state, from me to the head of homeland security, we have asked that Mr. Arar's name be removed from those lists," Day said. Arar was given $10.5 million in Canadian government compensation. He is also suing the US government over his ordeal.