US ruling dismisses Arar rendition lawsuit

A US federal court has dismissed a lawsuit against the Bush administration brought by Ottawa engineer Maher Arar, essentially giving Washington the green light to continue its practice of sending terrorist suspects to third countries where they could be tortured. Brooklyn District Court Judge David Trager cited the need for national security and secrecy in making his decision, but also raised the possibility of Canadian complicity in the decision to send Arar, now 35, to Syria in 2002, where he was tortured for almost a year. "The need for much secrecy can hardly be doubted," Trager wrote in an 88-page judgment. "One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria." Canadian officials have always denied complicity in the decision to send Arar to Syria after he was held in US custody for 13 days, but Arar said on Feb. 16 that a Canadian government inquiry, which is examining the role Canadian officials played in the affair, should make special note of the judge's comments. He also vowed he would never give up his quest to reverse the "evil" done against him. The Syrian-born Canadian engineer was detained as a suspected terrorist during a stopover in New York as he returned from a vacation in September 2002. After being held virtually incommunicado by US officials, he was sent to Syria, where he said he was tortured and held in a tiny cell he likened to a "grave" for nearly a year. He was never charged before Syria returned him to Canada. Ontario Assoc. Chief Justice Dennis O'Connor is expected to issue an interim report next month. The Arar suit was the first court test of the Bush administration policy of "extraordinary rendition," a practice often referred to as the outsourcing of torture. Arar's is just one of a number of well-documented cases in which suspects have been shipped to third countries with dubious human rights records where interrogation methods outlawed in the US can be used. Trager acknowledged Arar's fears of torture in Syria were real and he cited the US State Department's own report on human rights abuses there. He said such decisions were beyond the realm of his court. "A judge who declares on his or her own... authority that the policy of extraordinary rendition is under all circumstances unconstitutional must acknowledge that such a ruling can have the most serious of consequences to our foreign relations or national security or both," Trager wrote. Arar said that is exactly what courts are for. "If the courts will not stop this evil act, who is going to stop this administration? "Where do we go? The United Nations? We–me and others who have been subjected to this–are normal citizens who have done no wrong. "They have destroyed my life. They have destroyed other lives. But the court system does not listen to us. "The court system is what distinguishes the West from the Third World. When a court will not act because of 'national security,' there is no longer any difference between the West and the Third World." His lawyers vowed to continue the fight. "This ruling sets a frightening precedent," said Maria LaHood, one of a team of lawyers who took up Arar's case at the Center for Constitutional Rights, based in New York. "US officials sent Maher Arar to Syria to be detained and interrogated through torture. To allow the Bush administration to continue to evade accountability and continue to hide behind the smokescreen of 'national security' is to do grave and irreparable damage to the US Constitution and the guarantee of human rights that people in this country could once be proud of." Barbara Olshansky, the center's deputy legal director, said: "We will not accept this decision and are... continuing our campaign to obtain the truth... and demand accountability [from] the Bush administration." Arar's action named US officials who held him and who ran key government departments. The claims in the lawsuit include violations of Arar's right not to be tortured under foreign law as guaranteed by the Torture Victim Protection Act. The US government asserted the "state secrets" privilege, arguing the lawsuit must be dismissed because allowing it to proceed would necessarily involve the disclosure of sensitive information that would threaten national security or diplomatic relations if made public. A justice department official said the ruling pleased the government.