BEWARE THE GIFT OF POISON FRUIT The case of Mahar Arar Maher Arar, a Canadian software engineer, was detained at JFK airport in 2002 on his way home to Canada, after a family holiday in Tunisia. After being held incommunicado, denied access to a lawyer, and interrogated by the FBI, he was unlawfully rendered to Syria. At the hands of his Syrian captors, he was repeatedly physically and mentally abused during lengthy periods of aggressive interrogation. Arar later falsely confessed to attending a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, simply to stop the torture. Almost a year after Arar's detention, the Syrians released him, saying publicly they considered him completely innocent. In 2004, a Commission of Inquiry led by Justice Dennis O’Connor identified a long list of grave mistakes made by multiple Canadian authorities which led to Arar being rendered to Syria, and made important recommendations for Canadian authorities to prevent any future recurrence.16 The inquiry made clear that the Canadian authorities had come across Arar in the course of legitimate investigations into an acquaintance of Arar, and as there was evidence suggesting that there were close ties between the two men, Arar fell within the scope of that investigation as a result. However, both Arar and his wife were erroneously labelled as ‘terrorists’ in border surveillance watch lists, which proved dangerously inaccurate. In the report of the Commission of Inquiry, it is noted that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) provided information to American authorities without necessary screening for personal information, relevance or reliability. Arar was portrayed in an inaccurate light and his importance in their investigation (as a witness) was overstated. The information was provided without caveats on how such information should be used. He was identified by RCMP as an “Islamic extremist […] linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist movement”, despite the fact that the RCMP had no basis for the description, which had obvious potential consequences for how Arar would be treated by American authorities. The inquiry concluded it is very likely that the American’s relied on this information in the detention and deportation of Arar to Syria. Furthermore, on receiving statements from Syrian authorities about a statement made by Arar, it was distributed and relied on by Canadian executive agencies without an assessment of its likely result of torture. The RCMP also submitted further questions to Syrian 16 14 Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar: Analysis and Recommendations, 2006.