Appeals Court Rules Canadian Tortured After Rendition Cannot Sue United States

Source: Air America

Appeals Court Rules Canadian Tortured After Rendition Cannot Sue United States

By Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A Canadian engineer cannot sue the United States after being mistaken for a terrorist when he was changing planes in New York a year after the 2001 terrorist attacks, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

The judges of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 7-4 to uphold a decision by a lower court judge dismissing a lawsuit brought by Maher Arar, a Syrian-born man who was detained as he tried to switch planes in 2002.

Arar sued the U.S. government and top Justice Department officials, saying the United States purposely sent him to Syria to be tortured days after he was picked up at John F. Kennedy International Airport on a false tip from Canada that he had ties to Islamic extremists. The lawsuit said Arar was allowed to see a lawyer only once despite his repeated efforts to receive representation.

Syria has denied he was tortured. The Canadian government agreed to pay him almost $10 million after acknowledging it had passed bad information to U.S. authorities.

Read more: http://airamerica.com/news/11-02-2009/appeals-court-detained-canadian-cannot-sue-the-us/

CCR: "The court system in the United States has become more or less a tool that the executive branch can easily manipulate through unfounded allegations and fear mongering." The ruling is "a loss to all Americans and to the rule of law."

We are a slave nation and we are under a dictatorship.
No doubt or wiggle room left.
I am weeping for my country, our children and our children's children.

The courts may not be the best place to atone for what our country has done to him. Why not admit fault, apologize, and grant him a restitution?

This would be a sign of decency and good will that could create a positive impact out of what is a very shameful situation.

Why not admit fault, apologize, and grant him a restitution?


You must be joking.

"The appeals court said in a majority opinion that it cannot let Arar use the courts to press his claims against the U.S. government without Congress enacting legislation that spells out exactly how a case as unusual as Arar's claims can be brought and what potential remedy exists.

Otherwise, the court said, allowing the lawsuit to proceed would "offend the separation of powers and inhibit this country's foreign policy."



"Even the probing of these matters entails the risk that other countries will become less willing to cooperate with the United States in sharing intelligence resources to counter terrorism."

An unusual case to say the least. I wonder what kind of restitution would be appropriate if his claims are proven.

If this ruling stands, my prediction is it will cause a rebellion. I don't know when. It could be ten years, it could be fifty. Let's watch what the Supreme Court says.

If anybody has the right to sue a government official for damages, it's Arar. Ashcroft was using the government apparatus for flagrantly illegal and unconstitutional activities.

I am running out of names of possible allies.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/11/hbc-90006024

Second Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Arar
By Scott Horton

“When the history of this distinguished court is written, today’s majority decision will be viewed with dismay,” writes Guido Calabresi, the former Yale Law dean and a man widely viewed as the most illustrious living member of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He is lodging his dissent in a 7-4 decision of the en banc court concluding that a Canadian software engineer named Maher Arar has no right to sue government officials. What has Calabresi so worked up?

This is “hardly an ordinary immigration case,” as the majority concedes. Arar was apprehended in transit from a Mediterranean vacation to his home in Ottawa at the JFK airport. U.S. agents acting on a tip from the Canadian mounties–that turned out to be completely incorrect–seized Arar and held him for several days. Understandably, they were not going to let Arar into the country. This was fine with Arar, who just wanted to go home to Canada. But because Arar was born in Syria, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, acting on the advice of two political appointees serving in the Attorney General’s office, signed an order to send him back to Syria.

That decision was taken after an immigration review panel had concluded, with what turned out to be perfect accuracy, that Arar would be tortured if sent there. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Thompson resigned and departed shortly after learning the full story behind the Arar case.) Arar was turned over to the Syrians with a list of questions, and he was indeed brutally tortured for a year—to no point, of course, since Arar had no connections with any terrorist organizations. The Canadian Government, recognizing that its wrongdoing led indirectly to Arar’s mistreatment, conducted a comprehensive investigation, fully acknowledged its mistakes in a voluminous report, issued a formal letter of apology, and awarded Arar $11.5 million (Canadian) in compensation and reimbursement of legal costs. And the United States?

http://www.truthout.org/11050910

A few years back, the FBI mistakenly linked an American lawyer's fingerprint to one found near the scene of a horrific terrorist bombing in Madrid, Spain. In the tragedy of errors that followed, the lawyer was jailed in Oregon as a "material witness" for two weeks.

And what did the FBI do? It apologized. That doesn't happen very often, but it did happen this time. The FBI admitted a blunder that had led to Brandon Mayfield's unlawful imprisonment.
"The FBI apologizes to Mr. Mayfield and his family for the hardships that this matter has caused," the bureau said in a statement, adding that the agency also said it would review its practices on fingerprint analyses.

Mayfield, a 37-year-old convert to Islam, sharply criticized the government, calling his time behind bars "humiliating" and "embarrassing" and saying he was targeted because of his faith.
"This whole process has been a harrowing ordeal. It shouldn't happen to anybody," said Mayfield. "I believe I was singled out and discriminated against, I feel, as a Muslim."

And maybe that's what should have happened long before Maher Arar's case ended up before a federal appeals court. Consider how much money would have been saved by the government and by Arar's legal team, and think about how such an action by the government would have undoubtedly ceded the US the moral high ground it desperately needs to regain.

Just to refresh your memory: Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained at JFK Airport in September 2002 while changing planes on his way home to Canada. He was held by US authorities incommunicado - no lawyer, no contact with family, no nothing. The Bush administration labeled him a member of al-Qaeda and sent him not to Canada, his home and country of citizenship, but against his will to Syrian intelligence authorities renowned for torture. He was tortured, interrogated and detained in a tiny underground cell for nearly a year before the Syrian government released him, stating they had found no connection to any criminal or terrorist organization or activity.