A/HRC/4/33/Add.3 page 15 44. The Assistant Director of GID, Brigadier Ziyad Sharidah, and the Head of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, Colonel Ali Birjak, explained to the Special Rapporteur that Mr. Arar arrived in Amman as a normal passenger on a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight. Upon his arrival, a border control officer alerted GID that Mr. Arar’s name was on a list of wanted terrorists. GID officials stated that he was not arrested but was asked to leave the country, and was given a choice of any destination to go to. However, because there were no flights to any of the countries Mr. Arar had selected, he ultimately asked GID to bring him to Syria by car, which GID did. Brigadier Sharidah and Colonel Birjak repeatedly insisted on this account to the Special Rapporteur that Mr. Arar had not been arrested but was voluntarily brought, by his own request, to Syria with the assistance of GID. This account was reaffirmed in the Government’s comments to the draft report of 10 October 2006. 45. In the view of the Special Rapporteur, it is astonishing that high-level intelligence officials provided him an account which is clearly contradicted by the well-substantiated and partly proven allegations, as well as the evidence obtained so far and made public in this well-known case. Moreover, he is surprised that the Government reaffirmed this same account to him. 46. Based on the many consistent and credible allegations and the consistency of the testimonies of former detainees in relation to the torture methods used, as well as descriptions of the interrogation cells he inspected at GID, the denial of private interviews by GID officials, and the lack of credibility of the GID officials he met, the Special Rapporteur concludes that the allegations that torture is routinely practised by GID have to be taken as accurate. 47. Moreover, despite Jordan’s obligation to prohibit non-refoulement under article 3 of the Convention against Torture, GID has participated in activities that attempt to circumvent this by private plane, cited in the September 2006 Commission of Inquiry report, below). Throughout the journey, he was chained and shackled in the back of the plane. The shackles were removed only at the end of the trip, when he was given the opportunity to have a meal with his guards. On 9 October, in the middle of the night, he arrived in Amman and was transported blindfolded to a detention centre. He was then taken into a room, where the blindfold was removed. He was asked routine questions and then blindfolded again before being led to a cell. The next morning, he was told that he was going to Syria. Later that day, he was blindfolded and put into a vehicle. Around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Arar was in Syria, in the Far Falestin detention centre, also called the Palestine Branch, which was run by the Syrian Military Intelligence (SMI). He was held incommunicado until 21 October. See Report of Professor S. Toope, Government of Canada, Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, 14 October 2005; Government of Canada, Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar: Analysis and Recommendations, 18 September 2006. See also the Report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture to the General Assembly (A/60/316) of 30 August 2005, paragraphs 33, 48-50.