Arar sent to Syria legally: U.S. official

[Newsjock]

Source: Canadian Press

WASHINGTON — It's a “myth” that Canadian Maher Arar was sent to Syria under a contentious extraordinary rendition program, a top U.S. State Department official said Tuesday.

John Bellinger, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, told a Capitol Hill hearing that Arar was legally deported under immigration regulations.

And he defended the department's policy of seeking assurances against torture from countries with terrible human-rights records.

“It was not a rendition. This is a myth,” Mr. Bellinger said. “Arar was removed pursuant to a legal framework.”

... But Democratic Representative Bill Delahunt, who chairs a House of Representatives Foreign Relations subcommittee, said the State Department was kept out of the loop on Mr. Arar.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080610.warar0610/BNStory/International/home

[bean fidhleir]

1. Yep, just like all those sent to Auschwitz, Birkenau, & Belsen were sent legally, too.

It's not hard to make any curséd thing legal when you own the government.

Legitimate is harder.

[whosinpower]

2. Why wouldn't he be deported to Canada then?

He is CANADIAN - not syrian!

[Canuckistanian]

4. If US officials had done NOTHING

He would have been back in Canada in a few hours.

There was NO EXCUSE for grabbing one of our citizens TOTALLY ILLEGALLY and sending him to be tortured halfway around the world.

[Canuckistanian]

3. "we investigated ourselves and found no evidence of wrongdoing"

Who the fuck do they think thay're fooling?

We here in Canada know the whole sordid story and we're NOT forgetting it.

[booley]

5. Then why take him off the plane at all?

He wasn't sneaking into the country, he wasn't planning on living here.

He was on a stop over a plane going back to his home town when he was taken off by US authorities.

They can't have it both way..arresting him as a possible terrorist AND only deporting him back to a country he hadn't lived in for years. Doing so only make sit seem that they know they were in the wrong and are trying to Cover their own asses

[EFerrari]

6. Sociopaths. n/t