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In September of 2002, Maher Arar, a Syrian born Canadian citizen, was arrested in a New York airport. He was then deported to Syria, where he was detained and tortured for about a year. A Canadian commission of inquiry has now cleared him of any connection to terrorism, and awarded him a $10 million compensation from the Canadian government, as it had provided the CIA with the wrong information about him.
Yet despite all this, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that no criminal offense had been committed on November 3rd of this year. Although this is an extreme case, it illustrates how the system allows for an innocent man to be arrested, deported and tortured.
However, this does not just happen in America. In a court hearing in Milan, November 5th, Judge Oscar Magi condemned 23 US officers (mostly from the CIA) and two SISMI (the Italian military secret services) officers for having kidnapped a man called Abu Omar on Italian soil. He was tortured and held imprisoned for about 4 years. The judge granted him a compensation of 1M€ (£900,000) and €500,000 (£450,000) to his wife.
Robert Seldon Lady, CIA’s Milan station chief at the time of the kidnapping, was condemned to 8 years in prison, while the other 22 officers were condemned to 5 years each.
Omar is an Egyptian-born imam and a member of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, an anti-government Islamist group, responsible for numerous terrorist attacks and for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981.
According to an interview with Robert Seldon Lady published by Il Giornale (a newspaper belonging to Berlusconi’s family), Omar had been a CIA informant during the Kosovo War. In 1999 he had moved to Italy, where he obtained asylum. At the time of his kidnapping the Italian counter-terrorism for pro-terrorist activities group had been investigating his case. According to the investigation carried out by public prosecutor Guido Salvini on Omar’s activities, he really was involved in terrorist activities.
His abduction deeply damaged an Italian counter-terrorism probe, as the CIA declared that he had escaped to an unspecified Balkan country, and is said to have deliberately provided false information to the Italian services.
The Washington Post quoted an anonymous source within the CIA denying this statement. However, some people even say that the kidnapping was carried out as a ‘favour’ to the Egyptian secret service, given its close alliance to the CIA. Some people speculate that the Egyptian government might have used Omar’s detention and alleged torture for its ongoing negotiations with al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya.
The Italian judge’s verdict should not only be considered a condemnation of those who carried out the kidnapping, but of the whole extraordinary rendition strategy. It is a claim to the role of the judiciary to hold governments accountable -- and yet there are few and far between who dare stand up against their leadership.
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