Sick Transit

There’ve been allegations made that the US’ interrogation tactics when dealing with terrorists captured abroad is to threaten to turn them over to the authorities of Syria, Jordan, or Egypt, who are known to use torture in interrogation.

This new allegation, however, goes beyond that. According to a BBC story, Maher Arar, Syrian-born but apparently a Canadian citizen, was arrested while changing planes at JFK. After two weeks of interrogation about suspected membership in Al-Qaeda, Arar was deported–not to Canada, but to Syria, where he was held for 10 months and tortured into signing a confession.

As far as I’m aware, this is the first allegation that the United States has done this to a citizen of another Western nation, captured on US soil.

The only hole I see in the story is that, if it were true, why would Syria release him? If the account is confirmed, however, it would be a blatant instance of shoving aside civil rights in pursuit of the war against terror.

Arar has filed suit in Federal Court.