Mountie apologizes to ex-detainee

Canadian sent to Syria, tortured on fake charge

TORONTO -- Canada's top Mountie apologized Thursday for the "terrible injustices" done to a Canadian Muslim spirited to Syria and tortured for 10 months on false suspicions of terrorist ties. Critics of the government demanded that the prime minister offer his own apology.

Giuliano Zaccardelli, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, directed his remarks to Maher Arar, 36, who four years ago was detained at a New York airport and delivered to a Syrian prison by U.S. agents. Those agents were working on false information given to them by Canada.

"Mr. Arar, I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly to you and to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I am" for Mounties' actions that led to "the terrible injustices that you experienced and the pain that you and your family endured," Zaccardelli said, testifying before a parliamentary committee.

The remarks on the Arar case were Zaccardelli's first since a judicial inquiry on the controversy was released Sept. 18. The inquiry found that Canadian agents had given exaggerated and often flat-out false reports to U.S. intelligence agents, suggesting that Arar had terrorist connections and was the subject of a terrorist investigation. In fact, the exhaustive inquiry found, he was an innocent computer programmer.

The United States sent Arar to Syria as part of its "rendition" program, in which terrorist suspects are secretly sent to other countries, some of which are known to torture prisoners and conduct brutal interrogations. U.S. officials have not acknowledged Arar's innocence or any wrongdoing on their part.

Arar, father of two children ages 9 and 4, was imprisoned in a coffin-size dungeon in Syria. Since returning to Canada, he has been campaigning to clear his name.

Political critics excoriated Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday for balking at extending the same apology made by the commissioner of the mounted police. The House of Commons unanimously voted last week that "apologies should be presented" to Arar. But Harper's government has said any such formal expression from the government must be part of a negotiated settlement to compensate Arar.

"Canada owes a moral debt to Mr. Arar and his children," Marlene Jennings, a Liberal Party lawmaker from Quebec, said in a debate in the House of Commons. "The Conservative government has yet to apologize. Surely compassion is not a matter of negotiation."

"The government agrees that Mr. Arar was the victim of a great injustice," responded Jason Kenney, the Conservative Party parliamentary secretary to Harper. "But we have a responsibility to the taxpayers to ensure that the result will be responsible financially."