Several U.S. Congressmen Apologize to Arar

October 19, 2007

Author: PAUL KORING

Source: The Globe and Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20071019.ARAR19/TPStory/International

A clutch of U.S. congressmen apologized publicly yesterday to Maher Arar, the man Canada's Mounties once fingered as a terrorist and who was later shipped by the Bush administration to Syria where he was tortured.

"Let me personally give you what our government has not - an apology," said Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat, who chaired the extraordinary hearing yesterday.

The image of Mr. Arar, 37, was beamed in from Ottawa by video link and appeared on a huge monitor on the wall of the wood-panelled chamber on Capitol Hill. Despite an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a $10-million compensation payment from Canadians for being wrongly accused of al-Qaeda links, the Syrian-born software engineer remains barred from the United States as a terrorist suspect.