Maher Arar	Maher Arar	Maher Arar	Maher Arar	Maher Arar
Arar with his daughter and wife	Arar and his wife	Arar and his wife	Arar and his wife	Maher Arar
Maher Arar	Maher Arar	Maher Arar

Mahir Arar is 34 years old.  He is a dual Canadian-Syrian national, and has lived in Canada for many years.

Arar, an engineer, was on his way home from a family holiday in Tunisia but as he was about to change planes at New York's Kennedy Airport on 26 September 2002, he was seized by police, held for 13 days and questioned by American officials about links to a suspected terrorist.

After holding him for nearly two weeks, and failing to provide him with the ability to effectively challenge his detention or imminent transfer, U.S. immigration authorities flew Arar in handcuffs and leg irons via airports in Virginia and Maine, to Rome, and finally to Amman, Jordan, where he was driven across the border and handed over to Syrian authorities.

He was transferred, despite his repeated statements that he would be tortured in Syria.  The U.S. government has claimed that prior to Arar's transfer, it obtained assurances from the Syrian government that Arar would not be subjected to torture upon return.

However, torture in Syrian prisons is well-documented. The US state department's own report cites an array of gruesome tortures routinely used in Syrian jails.

Ten months later, Arar was released without charge from Syrian custody.  He stated that he was beaten by security officers in Jordan and tortured repeatedly, often with cables and electrical cords, during his confinement in a Syrian prison.

Arar says that in the morning after his arrival, a Syrian intelligence officer arrived carrying a black electrical cable, two inches thick and about two feet long.

"He said, 'Do you know what this is?' I said, I was crying, you know, 'Yes, I know what it is. It's a cable.' And he said, 'Open your right hand.' I opened my right hand … and he beat me very strongly.

He said, 'Open your left hand.' And I opened my left hand. And he beat me on my palm, on my left palm. And then he stopped, and he asked me questions. And I said to him, 'I have nothing to hide.'"

Arar says the physical torture took place during the first two weeks, but he says he also went through psychological and mental torture:

 "They would take me back to a room, they call it the waiting room. And I hear people screaming. And they, I mean, people, they're being tortured. And I felt my heart was going to go out of my chest."

Arar still has nightmares about his detention in Syria where he reports being kept in an unlit, underground, rat-infected cell that he likens to a grave. Although he initially tried to assert his innocence, he eventually signed whatever confessions he was told to. "You just give up", he said. "You become like an animal."

Related

Commission of inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in relation to Maher Arar

Report on Ghost Detention - Cageprisoners

Flash: Ghost Detainees

Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe states - Council of Europe, Explanatory Memorandum, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights.