Canada: Prime Minister apologizes to Maher Arar

On 26 January, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for the role that Canadian officials might have played in the deportation of a Canadian, Maher Arar, by the US to Syria where he was tortured. In December 2006, the Arar Commission of Inquiry released its final recommendations, calling for the establishment of new review mechanisms of the national security activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other federal departments. The Government has launched similar inquiries into three other cases in which Canadian officials were allegedly complicit in the detention and torture by Syrian intelligence agents of Canadians suspected of connections with terrorism.