U.S. Supreme Court urged to reject Maher Arar's appeal

[Praxius]

U.S. Supreme Court urged to reject Maher Arar's appeal - CTV News

OTTAWA — The U.S. government is urging the Supreme Court to reject an appeal from Canada's Maher Arar, who wants to sue Washington for sending him to Syria where he was tortured.

The Ottawa engineer was the victim of what's known as "extraordinary rendition" -- a much-maligned American policy of knowingly sending terrorism suspects to other countries that practice torture.

The Syrian-born Canadian was detained in September 2002 at Kennedy International Airport as he changed planes on his way to Montreal after vacationing in Tunisia.

He was suspected of having ties to al Qaeda, and was held and interrogated in New York for almost two weeks before being sent not to Canada, his home, but to Syria, the country of his birth.

An American federal court ruled last November that Arar cannot sue the U.S. government since U.S. Congress has yet to authorize any such lawsuits.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration says in court papers filed Wednesday in Washington that lower courts were right to dismiss Arar's lawsuit.

Arar, who spent a year in Syrian confinement, was finally released in 2003, and Canadian officials say he had no involvement in terrorism.

Syria has denied Arar was tortured. Ottawa agreed to pay him $10.5 million after acknowledging it had passed bad information to U.S. authorities.

Bunch of hypocrites. When someone in our country breaks a law in the US while not even ever stepping foot in the US and is over something minor like Marc Emery's situation.... they'll fight tooth and nail to get him sent to the US to face punishment and legal proceedings.... yet when the US commits a crime against one of our own, and in a far more serious situation like the above with Arar.... suddenly they hide behind bureaucratic BS of such lawsuits not being "Authorized" by their own government, who are directly involved in the crime in question.

Real fair.

Jackasserackies Galore.

 

[The Old Medic]

No crime of any sort was committed against this man. Hate to tell you, but under U.S. law, the government was absolutely within its rights to send this man back to Syria.

I frankly don't give a whit if thousands of Canadians don't like this. If you won't clean up your own country, well then the hell with you!

 

[mabudon]

I'll just ignore Olde Tyme and hope he takes his A-hole routine somewhere else.

Prax, it really is fascinating isn't it, the Emery case is a perfect contrast to the Arar situation. The way things are proceeding, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up cloning Arar so that when he dies of old age they'll be able to continue doing whatever it is that is being done with/to him.

 

[Praxius]

No crime of any sort was committed against this man. Hate to tell you, but under U.S. law, the government was absolutely within its rights to send this man back to Syria.

I frankly don't give a whit if thousands of Canadians don't like this. If you won't clean up your own country, well then the hell with you!

Smooth.... he was a Canadian citizen, thus if you wanted to boot him out of your precious little country down there, then you should have booted him back to Canada for us to deal with.... but instead, you guys decided to quench your torture-lust by sending him off to Syria and let the Syrians do your dirty work of beating and torturing him for months on end, all based on "He said/she said" hearsay and faulty evidence.

And for the record, we don't have to clean up our own country, because he didn't do anything and had no ties to any sort of terrorism in the first place.... you claim no crime was committed against him, but clearly a plethora of crimes were committed based not only on international laws (which I used to think you and your country stood up for at one time) but basic human rights as well.

The only other thing I have to say on this matter to you is that as far as I'm concerned, I won't even be bothered to play the world's smallest violin for any US citizen treated in a similar fashion as Arar by another country..... if your country's leaders treat innocent people this way as they did, then it's open season on US citizens to be treated the same way.

"If you don't clean up your own country" you say..... pot meet kettle in regards to that statement.... but also, clean up what?

Clean up our innocent?

How about next time before you open your mouth and spout off total ignorance, you actually educate yourself on the topic at hand so you don't blab on about such silly and ignorant things?

I'll just ignore Olde Tyme and hope he takes his A-hole routine somewhere else.

Prax, it really is fascinating isn't it, the Emery case is a perfect contrast to the Arar situation. The way things are proceeding, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up cloning Arar so that when he dies of old age they'll be able to continue doing whatever it is that is being done with/to him.

The Emery case is a complete mockery and a perfect example of how our government bends over backwards to get an acorn shoved up their arse with a twist for anything the US wants.... while never bothering to give us the reach around.

"Send us all the people we want to jail and torture..... regardless if they're innocent or not.... we don't care..... because even if they are innocent and even though they may have never once stepped foot in the US.... who cares? We can do whatever the hell we damn well please and answer to nobody." :roll:

 

[EagleSmack]

Perhaps the US Govt should have said...

"Please let this guy sue us!"

 

[Praxius]

Perhaps the US Govt should have said...

"Please let this guy sue us!"

Perhaps not, but just reading their own quotes above, to me sounds more like a legal loophole cop out in order to avoid more public damnation over these type of practices that are not exclusive to Arar or others from outside of the US, which many in the US public and elsewhere around the world greatly disapprove of.

They also know that if they allowed Arar to do this, the many others who've been detained, tortured and released without charge, years after being captured, would also be allowed to sue the crap out of the US government and they'd never see the end of it.

I understand why they did not advise for letting him sue..... but I can not agree with such an avoidance of justice.

And because of this.... if any US citizen is put in a similar situation as Arar, I certainly won't hold any sympathy for them. Eye for an Eye so to speak..... do unto others as you'd have them do unto you as they say.

If the US is allowed to treat people like this and continually avoid any responsibility for such actions, then I see no reason why other countries can't do the same.

 

[EagleSmack]

US citizens get put in this situation all the time. We get tortured, we get our heads sawed off, kidnapped, executed, taken hostage.

It's been going on for years.

It's par for the course if you're a Yank.

 

[earth_as_one]

Perhaps the US Govt should have said...

"Please let this guy sue us!"

You government caused an innocent innocent man to be tortured in a hole in Syria for a year. This man only won his freedom through the persistence of his wife. The Canadian government accepted responsibility for their part in this case apologized and paid Arar compensation.

The Americans are behaving like asses. He still can't get on a plane flying through American airspace, because taking him off the no fly list would be like an admission of guilt. Even Americans senators who have looked at the evidence admit a this person faced a serious miscarriage of justice.

Maher Arar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Typical that the US government would hide behind their bureacracy to deny this man appropriate justice and compensation.

As far as Marc Emory case is concern, it set a precedent for for countries like Saudi Arabia if they want to go after Canadian producers of alcohal since alcohal is just as illegal there as marijuana seeds are in the US.