WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), welcomed the official apology from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to extraordinary rendition victim, Maher Arar, and the payment of an historic $10 million settlement in the case.  Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian descent, was detained by American authorities during a layover in New York’s JFK International Airport in 2002 and transferred to Syria where he was imprisoned under ground and tortured for nearly a year.  Canadian authorities had provided incorrect intelligence to the United States that Mr. Arar was a terrorist threat.  In 2006, an independent Canadian government inquiry, spanning two years, concluded that Maher Arar was totally innocent of any connection to terrorism and that the information provided by Canada to the United States was false and misleading.  Notwithstanding the official conclusion that Mr. Arar is innocent of any wrongdoing and now the apology of the Canadian government, the Bush Administration has refused to remove Mr. Arar from its terrorist watch list.

Rep. Markey said, “The apology from Canadian Prime Minister Harper to Maher Arar, a man who has been wronged in a terrible way by our government and by the government of Canada, is long overdue.  The Bush Administration should follow suit and admit publicly that it was cruel to detain and transfer Maher Arar to Syria for torture.  I will continue to press the Bush Administration to come clean on their policies to outsource torture and to finally bring an end to this horrific and indefensible practice.”

“No amount of money can make up for the profoundly unjust and inhumane treatment that Mr. Arar suffered at our hands and by the torturers in Syria, but I congratulate him on the clearing of his name and on the historic settlement paid to him by the Canadian government,” Markey continued.  

Rep. Markey is the author of the Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act, which will end the practice of extraordinary rendition.  In the fall of 2006, Rep. Markey introduced 5 Resolutions of Inquiry to force the Bush Administration and cabinet offices to release all information concerning Mr. Arar.