Canadian loses U.S. appeal in Syrian torture claim (Maher Arar)

Source: Reuters

Canadian loses U.S. appeal in Syrian torture claim
Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:44pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Canadian who accused U.S.
authorities of violating his rights and illegally deporting him
to Syria where he was tortured lost an appeal on Monday.

Maher Arar, a software engineer born in Syria, sued top U.S.
government officials in 2004 after he was arrested during a
stopover to New York in 2002 and deported to Syria because
of suspected links to al Qaeda.

-snip-

Arar had argued his constitutional rights were violated when
he was confined without access to an attorney or the court
system and then forcibly returned to Syria, where U.S.
authorities had reason to believe he would be tortured.

But the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, affirming a
lower court decision, ruled that Arar failed to establish
that the federal court had jurisdiction to hear his complaint.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN3041828520080630

Thank you for posting. Would it be appropriate to put the name in parentheses in the subject line? Some here might more likely recognize the topic that way.

"Arar has not adequately established federal subject matter jurisdiction over his request for a judgment declaring that defendants acted illegally by removing him to Syria so that Syrian authorities could interrogate him under torture," the ruling said.

That's going to take some more reading ...

This is really fresh news and isn't showing up in the Cdn media yet. I recommend going to google news via google.ca in a little while and checking for more info and analysis.

International Criminal Court in the Hague?

K&R

Like CBC's 'The National'

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/world/americas/01arar.html

... the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that since he was never technically inside the United States, his claims could not be heard in the federal courts.

While stating that “threats to the nation’s security do not allow us to jettison principles of “simple justice and fair dealing,” the majority opinion ruled nonetheless that Mr. Arar, who was seized as he tried to change planes at Kennedy Airport while flying back to Canada from Switzerland, had no federal standing in his case and that the government did not violate the Torture Victim Protection Act by sending him abroad.

... In an occasionally scathing dissent, one judge, Robert D. Sack, said that Mr. Arar’s suit should have been able to proceed because the argument that he was never really in the United States was “a legal fiction.”

“Arar was, in effect, abducted while attempting to transit at JFK Airport,” Judge Sack wrote. “And when he failed to give defendants the information they were looking for, and he refused to be sent ‘voluntarily’ to Syria, they forcibly sent him there to be detained and questioned under torture.”

I really am on the way to hating US.

:puke:

if Barack Obama is elected President? I'd like to think that he'd do something- he did make a pretty great speech against the Military Commissions Act- but is he saying anything about it now?

Don't enter the US.
Further don't fly over the US.

You have no rights nor protection.

NEW YORK–A U.S. appeals court decision upholding the dismissal of a lawsuit from Canadian Maher Arar essentially enables the U.S. government to send foreigners to be tortured, a lawyer with a human rights group representing Arar said late today.

"It means that the U.S. can do to anyone what they did to Maher," said Maria LaHood, a senior attorney with the U.S.-based Centre for Constitutional Rights.

"They can do it to anyone, to any foreign citizen, and use the immigration process as a guise, basically, to send someone to be tortured."

The decision also said that Arar, as a foreigner who had not been formally admitted to the U.S., had no constitutional due process rights.

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/451986

Arar's complaint can't be heard in U.S. federal court
U.S. lawmakers made a public apology last October during a U.S. House of Representatives hearing convened to discuss his deportation.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/06/30/us-arar.html

Why would anyone put themselves into a position where they have no rights or no recourse?