I won’t waste time rehashing the Omar Khadr story. But suffice it to say that this development back in January was rather shocking. Even more shocking is that nothing has really been mentioned about this issue since.
In January 2009, it was widely reported that Omar Khadr, the Canadian child detained at Guantanamo and now the only Western citizen to still be held there, had identified Maher Arar. Arar is a Canadian who was detained when travelling via New York, arrested and deported to Syria for several years while he was tortured mercilessly. He has now successfully obtained money from the Canadian government after a public inquiry cleared him of all charges.
The CP24 news story states that:
Maher Arar, the Ottawa computer engineer whose 2002 deportation and torture in Syria made him a symbol of the perils of post-9-11 hysteria, was identified by Omar Khadr as someone he'd seen at al-Qaida safehouses and possibly an Afghan training camp, an FBI special agent testified Monday.
It was pretty spurious as far as allegations go, because this information had not come up until this point and has not really come up again.
Most importantly, this testimony was widely condemned. Khadr’s US Lawyer Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler said that Khadr often lied to investigators so they would stop torturing him. Paul Cavalluzzo, who served as chief counsel for the Arar inquiry also stated that it was useless if it was a product of torture.
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