October 9, 2002 - Maher Arar - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Maher Arar begins ten months of detention, beatings and torture in Syrian jail. Maher Arar was born in Syria in 1970 before his family moved to Canada in 1987. He obtained bachelors and masters degrees in computer engineering, became a Canadian citizen in 1991 and worked as a wireless technology consultant in Ottawa. On September 26, 2002, while changing planes in New York, Arar was detained by American officials. Believing he was linked to the terrorist group Al Qaeda, officials interrogated Arar for days, and his requests for a lawyer and a phone call were refused until October 5th, when he met with a lawyer for 30 minutes. Three days later he was deported to Syria and on October 9, 2002 arrived in Syria to an immediate interrogation. The next day he was taken to a cell he called the “grave”; it had no light and was three-by-six-by-seven feet. He would spend the next 10 months and 10 days there. During the first week, he was beaten with a shredded electrical cable and threatened with worse torture. Over time, he confessed to whatever they asked of him, even though none of it was true. For the next 10 months, he saw Canadian officials seven times until October 5, 2003, when he was driven to the Canadian embassy in Syria and flown home. In January 2004 the Canadian government called a public enquiry and on September 18, 2006 Justice Dennis O’Connor released his findings with harsh criticisms of the RCMP for giving the Americans inaccurate information about Arar. On January 26, 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper officially apologized to Arar and announced that he would receive $12.5 million as compensation for pain and suffering and for his legal fees.

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