Arar as wrongful conviction case?

I get my information about crime from the media just like everybody else. Like most people I know who Maher Arar is because he has been awarded $10 million, legal costs and an apology for Canada's role in getting him a reservation for a year-long stay in a Syrian jail.
But I have to confess I wasn't really paying attention in 2002 when articles first started appearing in the news. While there are still newspapers who report that Maher "says" he was tortured during the year he was jailed in Damascus as if it is a suspect claim, in general coverage has changed substantially over five years.
What happened to Arar prompted a public inquiry and the final report placed the blame for Arar's deportation on the RCMP for giving inaccurate information to U.S. authorities. The former RCMP commissioner, Giuliano Zaccardelli, resigned over the case last December.
In this case it doesn't matter that there might have been good reasons for a bad mistake. It doesn't matter that in the aftermath of 9/11 security was tightened up. An innocent man was convicted without a trial. This is unconscionable.
So I am intrigued by statements such as 'anonymous leaks in the Canadian security establishment that have never been traced fuelled suspicion.' To do catch-up on the story I went back to find news articles which leaked information damaging to Arar's reputation from unattributed sources. I found out more than I knew but less than I hoped.
For example, I found out from ctv.ca that the RCMP has shared information about people who have done nothing wrong with U.S. police and security agencies if they have associated with persons suspected as security threats.
Further, that 'extraordinary rendition' is the technical term for sending persons suspected as terrorists for questioning in foreign countries which use torture to extract 'confessions.'
I also found out from Talk Left, an online magazine of crime-related injustice news, that in 2004 when Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill wrote an article citing "a security source" giving details of what Arar told Syrian military intelligence officials during his incarceration that the RCMP armed with a search warrant searched her home trying to find the source of the leaked information.
I learned from www.injusticebusters.com that in 2004 an Ontario Superior Court Judge ruled that court orders sealing the reasons for security raids against O'Neill violated constitutional guarantees of a free press, freedom of expression and the public's right to an open court system.
The RCMP request to keep the reasons secret for the raid on her home came under the Security of Information Act, a law passed following the 9/11 attacks as part of the omnibus Anti-Terrorism Act.
The Security of Information Act replaced the Official Secrets Act adopted on the eve of the Second World War. The National Post writes that there have been only six criminal investigations since the early 1960s dealing with spying or leaked information. One of the last cases was in 1979 against the Toronto Sun for publishing a 1976 RCMP report related to Russian spies in Canada.
News accounts from 2003 say the RCMP was waiting at Dorval on Sept. 27, 2002, for Arar to return from Tunisia through JFK Airport. However, CBS's 60 Minutes reports Canadian intelligence approved of the U.S. decision to deport Mr. Arar to Syria. The U.S. had offered to deport Arar to Canada but sent him to Syria instead after the RCMP said it did not have enough evidence to detain or charge him if he was sent home.
So he was innocent, evidence which could have proved it was not released, and he was sent to jail without a trial. This doesn't sound like justice to me. Not at all.
The O'Connor Inquiry into the wrongful conviction of Maher Arar released its report on Sept. 18, 2006, clearing Maher of all terrorism allegations, and found that the actions of Canadian officials lead to his ordeal.
Maher has extensive resources devoted to this case at www.maherarar.ca and the report can be found at www.ararcommission.ca.

This article originally appeared in the Daily Gleaner, Feb 1, 2007 as "Canada's latest wrongful conviction case?"