FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2, 2009
1:10 PM

No Justice for Canadian Rendition Victim Maher Arar

Court Refuses to Hold US Officials Accountable for Complicity in Torture Abroad

WASHINGTON - November 2 - Today, a federal Court of Appeals dismissed Canadian citizen Maher Arar's case against U.S. officials for their role in sending him to Syria to be tortured and interrogated for a year. Arar is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The court concluded that Arar's case raised too many sensitive foreign policy and secrecy issues to permit relief. It leaves the federal officials involved free of any legal accountability for what they did.

Maher Arar is not available to comment in person, but is issuing the following statement: "After seven years of pain and hard struggle it was my hope that the court system would listen to my plea and act as an independent body from the executive branch. Unfortunately, this recent decision and decisions taken on other similar cases, prove that the court system in the United States has become more or less a tool that the executive branch can easily manipulate through unfounded allegations and fear mongering. If anything, this decision is a loss to all Americans and to the rule of law."

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