A U.S. federal judge has dismissed Maher Arar's lawsuit against American officials claiming he was deported to Syria as a terrorism suspect to be tortured. In a ruling Thursday in New York, Judge David Trager said he can't interfere in the case because it involves crucial national security and foreign relations issues in the anti-terror fight. “The need for much secrecy can hardly be doubted,” Judge Trager wrote in his 88-page ruling. “One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria.”| But imagine the glee of the NYT were that to be the case. |
In Ottawa, Mr. Arar called the decision “very disappointing, emotionally very hard to digest. I was not expecting the judge to dismiss the entire case. I was hoping that he could let at least part of it proceed to discovery. It is giving the green light to the Bush administration and the CIA to continue with their practice of rendition. Basically they're telling people ... if you're ever wronged by our politicians or intelligence people, you are on your own, good luck.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights launched the lawsuit on Mr. Arar's behalf in January 2004 against former attorney general John Ashcroft and other U.S. officials, seeking undisclosed damages. The case is believed to be the first to challenge the U.S. government's policy of extraordinary rendition, where suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval. Mr. Arar claimed his rights under the U.S. constitution were violated. He says he was tortured during a 13-day detention at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport in the fall of 2002 and during 10 months in a Syrian jail, where he was forced to make false confessions of terrorist activity. He was released in 2003.