Comment Of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On The Bush Administration’s Response To Canadian Officials
Regarding The Case Of Maher Arar
January 22, 2007

Letter from Secretary Chertoff and Attorney General Gonzales
to Canadian Minister of Public Safety Day

“Congress and the American people deserve to know more about the Bush Administration’s handling of this case.  I am particularly puzzled by this Administration’s decision to keep Maher Arar on a U.S. border control watch list even though a Canadian commission found that he is innocent and poses no security threat.  The Attorney General has pledged to me that he would provide the Judiciary Committee with more information shortly, and I hope these facts, whatever they are, will finally shed light on our questions.

“Canadian officials said last week that new intelligence provided by the United States did not change their conclusion that Mr. Arar poses no threat to the United States or to Canada.  The letter from Secretary Chertoff and Attorney General Gonzales supplies no new information to clear up the confusion as to why Mr. Arar remains on a watch list or why he was sent to Syria in the first place.  I am hopeful that the Attorney General will follow through on his pledge to promptly supply us with the information we need to meaningfully evaluate these decisions.

“I am disappointed that the letter does not address the larger issues surrounding this case.  The reason the Arar case is such a sore point and such an offense to American values is that he was sent to Syria, on the Bush Administration’s orders, where he was tortured.  This was the finding of the Canadian commission that has investigated this case, and it seems beyond dispute at this point.

“Yet the Bush Administration has yet to renounce the practice of sending detainees to countries that torture prisoners, and it has yet to offer even the hint of an apology to Mr. Arar for what he endured with our government’s complicity.  This abhorrent practice stains America’s reputation as a defender and protector of human rights, and I hope this Administration will renounce it at long last.”

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