Thursday, February 4, 2010

Rendition victim moves to sue US


Al-Jazeera

"A Canadian man who was deported by US officials to Syria, where he was imprisoned and allegedly tortured, has appealed a court ruling preventing him from suing the US.

Maher Arar filed a lawsuit before the US supreme court on Monday, appealing a lower court ruling that rejected his case because it involved national security information.

Arar was arrested by US authorities while transiting through New York's JFK International Airport in 2002, on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunis.....

US authorities held him in solitary confinement and interrogated him for nearly two weeks before deporting him to Syria.

He was imprisoned for a year in Damascus, the Syrian capital, during which time he says he was tortured before finally being released and returned to Canada.

A Canadian commission eventually cleared him of any connections to "terrorist" organisations and concluded that he had been tortured. He was awarded $10.5m in compensation.

Arar's suit before the Supreme Court questions whether "federal officials who conspired with Syrian officials to subject an individual in US custody to torture in Syria may be sued for damages"......"

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