This is what we know now: on September 26, 2002, Maher Arar, en route to Montreal, was detained by the FBI at JFK airport on suspected links to al-Qaeda. From there he was transferred to a Syrian jail, where he was locked in a coffin-like underground cell, interrogated and beaten with ragged electrical wire. Almost a year later, he was released, without explanation, and returned to Canada.
In the time since, a Canadian commission decided the RCMP had given false information about Arar to the CIA, and the top cop resigned. More spectacularly, a group of Toronto lawyers, led by the fearless Julian Falconer, won Arar an $11.5‑milÂlion settlement from the Canadian government—an unprecedented amount for a human-rights violation.
The settlement stunned U.S. lawmakers, who have refused to apologize for their country’s role in Arar’s ordeal. In the States, he’s still on the terrorism watch list, and his American attorneys have yet to win a round in his civil case there. But with the Obama administration comes a new Department of Justice, a pledge of transparency, and the possibility that Arar and other wrongfully accused people will finally see officials held responsible.
—Alec Scott
Toronto Life Magazine
http://www.torontolife.com/features/50-reasons-love-toronto-right-now/?pageno=26