B.C. man freed in Syria
Last updated May 8 2005 11:09 AM PDT
CBC News
OTTAWA – The Canadian government has hailed as a diplomatic coup the release of a Surrey man from a Syrian prison.
Maher Ahmed Zaydan, who is now reunited with his family, had been in custody since arriving in Damascus on April 21.
FROM MAY 5, 2005: B.C. man detained by Syria
It remains unclear why he and his family went to Syria or why he was arrested. But the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs said Canadian diplomacy had helped win Zaydan's release.
"It's another example of how diplomacy is working," Dan McTeague told CBC News.
McTeague could not say why Zaydan had been released or why the Canadian of Syrian origin had been arrested in the first place. He said the government knew very little about the events.
"It'd be up to Mr. Zaydan to elaborate," he said.
Zaydan, who lived in Surrey, and is a citizen of both Syria and Canada, had returned to Syria to care for his ailing father, the Vancouver Sun reported.
A human rights group based in London said Zaydan was a political exile who might have been lured back to Syria with the promise that it would be safe.
The Sun said Zaydan sold his Surrey home in March in order to go to Syria.
Zaydan's case is reminiscent of the affair involving Maher Arar, another Syrian-Canadian. Arar claims Canadian security services suspected him of extremist leanings and conspired to have him deported to Syria.
There, he says he was tortured in prison for 10 months in 2002.
The Arar case is being examined in a public inquiry.
