A story just broke in Canada that, if confirmed, may explain how this whole mess started:
In late August, 2001, U.S. border guards discovered a single sheet of paper — a schematic map of Ottawa marking government buildings and nuclear research facilities — in an 18-wheeler driven by a man named Ahmad Abou El-Maati.
During eight hours of grilling, the 39-year-old Toronto truck driver, a devout Muslim, denied owning the map. But when he returned to Canada, he was dogged by counterterrorism agents. Months later, search warrants were executed at seven Ottawa locations as RCMP officers looked for explosives and diagrams of government buildings.
And when Mr. El-Maati travelled to Syria in November, 2001, he was immediately jailed as a terrorism suspect — the first in a series of Canadian Muslims to face such a fate. Locked up for more than two years, he was freed from prison this week.
The article suggests that this was the beginning of the investigation that eventually led to Arar's torture, and this rings true to me.
I've been struggling to figure out why the U.S. was so determined to deport Arar, when it now seems that he was probably innocent. I knew it was connected to other Canadians of Syrian descent being imprisoned in the Middle East-- Abdullah Almalki (the one whose name was on Arar's lease), El-Maati (who was held in an Egyptian prison until this week) and another man named Arwad Al-Bouchi. But I couldn't figure out how to write about it coherently. Well, if this story is confirmed, I might have a shot at doing so (writing coherently) tomorrow.
So: read the whole thing.
Katherine, I haven't been commenting much, but I've really appreciated your Maher Arar posts. I think this is the first time I've seen anyone tie it all together and go after it in detail in this coherent way. Good stuff. Thank you.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | January 17, 2004 at 04:43 AM