Documents: CIA Involved In a Deportation to Syria

Newly declassified portions of a Canadian government report disclose that the CIA was involved in the decision to deport a man to Syria for interrogation, where the man was imprisoned and tortured.

The report says Canadian intelligence officials suspected from the beginning that the American government deported Maher Arar in order to submit him to abuses that he was unlikely to suffer while imprisoned within American borders.

Canadian law enforcement was involved in Mr. Arar's case because it shared information alleging Mr. Arar had terrorist links that led to him being placed on an American watch list.

"I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him," a top official who has since retired from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Jack Hooper, said in a memorandum from October 2002, days after Mr. Arar was deported from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian resident originally from Syria, was routed through Jordan before spending nearly a year in a Syrian prison. Previously classified portions of the Canadian report show that the CIA contacted Canadian police with questions about Mr. Arar within days of his deportation.

The unclassified portions of the report released last year do not mention any involvement by the CIA. Portions of the government report were ordered declassified by a Canadian judge.

Canada has since cleared Mr. Arar of links to terror. This country has not.

Last year, a federal judge in Brooklyn dismissed Mr. Arar's suit against top American officials, including Attorney General Ashcroft. The pending appeal centers on whether Mr. Arar is entitled to constitutional protections abroad and whether government officials can be held liable for abetting torture that occurs abroad.

A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment.