Arar's suitcase came home, but he didn't

'Did the carry-on bag travel with him to Damascus, and is it at the prison, in safekeeping?'

The Hill Times, October 4th, 2004


By Ken Rubin


Sometimes personal travelling items, like a suitcase, a handbag or a wallet, can tell a story: and what arrives safely home and what does not. Take Maher Arar's story, for example.

Mr. Arar, the Syrian-born Canadian beaten and imprisoned for a year in Syria, had his suitcase, handbag and other personal belongings with him on his trip home on Sept. 26, 2002, from his Tunisian summer holiday with his family before he was about to spend a year "in hell." His wife, Monia Mazigh and their two small children would be returning to Ottawa about two months later.

His suitcase, some two years ago, arrived safely back in Canada, but Mr. Arar did not.

He was detained on a stop-over at New York's Kennedy International Airport on Sept. 26, 2002, by U.S. authorities and not allowed to return to Canada. Mr. Arar was told he was found to be on a terrorist list and was deported by American authorities to Syria, through Jordan, despite insisting that he be sent back to Canada. He says he was beaten for almost two weeks. He was then imprisoned for a year without charges.

Ms. Mazigh garnered national attention when she successfully worked on the release of her husband and pushed the government to establish an inquiry.

The Maher Arar federal inquiry is now investigating the case in Ottawa. Mr. Arar has also launched a lawsuit against the Canadian government. Mr. Arar is also seeking financial compensation.

As well, Mr. Arar has launched legal action in the U.S., claiming he was a victim of "extraordinary rendition," a controversial practice in which U.S. authorities deport terrorism suspects to countries with severe interrogation tactics, realizing they could be tortured.

But the U.S. government is trying to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Mr. Arar, arguing that U.S. officials cannot be held responsible for the treatment the Canadian citizen received in a Syrian jail.

Meanwhile, the story about the suitcase was casually mentioned by Mr. Arar and Ms. Mazigh last fall while I was helping file further access to information requests on their behalf, under Canada's Access and Privacy Acts. Indeed, some of the documentation I recently received helps confirm parts of their story.

Mr. Arar's suitcase had his clothes and his baby son Houd's passport and birth certificate in it. The documents needed to be updated, so Mr. Arar was bringing them home on Sept. 26, 2002, to be looked after as his wife was not due to return to Ottawa until mid-November, 2002. He states that he last saw his suitcase at the New York Metropolitan Detention Center after being detained.

Mr. Arar would not return to Canada through Dorval Airport in Montreal until Oct. 6, 2003, more than a year later, where he was greeted by his wife, supporters and the media.

Yet, it was on Nov. 13, 2002, almost a year earlier and the day before Ms. Mazigh was to return to Ottawa, that Ms. Mazigh's mother in Ottawa received a telephone message saying that Mr. Arar's suitcase was already waiting for Ms. Mazigh -- who was due to return the next day -- at Dorval. To Ms. Mazigh, it seemed as though someone knew she was returning home and the suitcase had been there for a while.

Ms. Mazigh was able to retrieve her husband's suitcase, with her son's documentation in it, at Dorval's American Airlines luggage claims -- but only after she was subjected to a "very rude" two hours of grilling from Canadian Customs and Immigration officials who questioned her about her Canadian and Tunisian travel documents. Documents dated Nov. 15, 2002, obtained from Foreign Affairs said the treatment accorded to Ms. Mazigh was a mix-up and "our error."

Meanwhile, the whereabouts of Mr. Arar's other travel bag, a handbag, which Ms. Mazigh did not retrieve, was asked about by a Foreign Affairs official. In a Nov. 25, 2002, e-mail, Ottawa's Foreign Affairs counsellor officers asked the Canadian political counsellor in the Canadian Embassy in Damascus, "Did the carry-on bag travel with him to Damascus, and is it at theprison, in safekeeping?"

Mr. Arar indicates that what happened was that the handbag stayed in transit with him and his handlers through his agonizing late September, 2002 stay at the New York Detention Centre, followed by a flight in the middle of the night ­ in chains - to Jordan in early October, 2002, and then onto Syria.

The handbag, Mr. Arar states, had contained some chocolates and Tunisian sweets and a tea set for his mother and sister. The tea set was -- and remains -- missing, a fact that is still upsetting to Mr. Arar.

That handbag became Mr. Arar's pillow in the months of solitary confinement he spent in the Syrian Palestine Branch prison. He has called the small cell there "a grave." Mr. Arar brought back that handbag to Ottawa when he was freed from prison.

What was also missing after he was detained were his black Rockport shoes and a Liz Claiborne navy sports jacket that he had to take off at the NY Detention Centre. It's funny or not so funny, Mr. Arar muses, that while in prison and amid terror, torture and doubts, his thoughts sometimes turned to what happened to his sports jacket and his shoes. The shoes and sports jacket were not in the suitcase safely sent back in Canada.

As for his wallet, which an unnamed American official in November, 2003, claimed had Al Qaeda names in it, what Mr. Arar most remembers is how American officials detaining him kept holding up an American $100 bill found in it (but not the $120 in Canadian dollars) presumably to see if it was real or a fake. What was happening to him was not fake.

That wallet also held credit cards and an ATM bank card, his Ontario health card and his driver's licence. Mr. Arar said that months later when he was imprisoned in Syria, he did get some of the cash back, converted into Syrian pounds. He was allowed to use the money to buy necessities, like soap and detergents.

He also had a laptop and a Palm Pilot with him upon his New York arrival. Mr. Arar told The Globe and Mail in January, 2004 that both held some 500 to 600 names in their data bases; most of them employees of a computer company where he worked. That computer equipment seized from him accompanied him on the terrifying deportation journey out of the U.S. These items were confiscated in Syria.

His Canadian passport, which he states he had insisted be honoured in New York City, was temporarily handed back to him as he was unchained just before landing in Jordan. It was only just before his Oct. 5, 2003, release to Canadian embassy officials in Syria that he finally got permanent repossession of his Canadian passport, along with his wallet and computer equipment.

Mr. Arar was able to come back badly shaken from what he described as "hell," but much later than his suitcase.

Mr. Arar has indicated on a number of occasions that he wants answers to questions about how he ended up being deported to Syria by the U.S.

Getting to the bottom of all the circumstances - what happened to Mr. Arar and, yes, his suitcase, is proving difficult. Too many people with too much luggage want the truth buried.

Ken Rubin has helped a variety of individuals get data that the government holds on them. Mr. Rubin also continues to press for documents from access and privacy requests on behalf of Monia Mazigh and Maher Arar.

kdrubin@cyberus.ca

The Hill Times