The NY Times carried this story today on Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was taken into custody, under suspicion of being connected with al Qaeda, while changing planes in New York, and who was “exonerated” by a Canadian Commission on Monday.

“A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled Canadian authorities about their plans for Mr. Arar before transporting him to Syria.

“I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada,” Justice Dennis R. O’Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference.

The report’s findings could reverberate heavily through the leadership of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which handled the initial intelligence on Mr. Arar that led security officials in both Canada and the United States to assume he was a suspected Al Qaeda terrorist.

The report‚Äôs criticisms and recommendations are aimed primarily at Canada‚Äôs own government and activities, rather than the United States government, which refused to cooperate in the inquiry.”

In case you didn’t know, Arar has been around the left wing blogsphere since 2003 and interviewed extensively by C-BS and other MSM outlets. He also is a frequent contributor to left wing antiwar sites like Counterpunch, and a frequent guest on Queen Moonbat Amy Goodman’s show.

Dennis R. O’Connor, was the judge on this commission that made the decision that there was no evidence against Mr. Arar, yet when you read the documentation from the hearings the testimony is mainly from Arar himself and othe far left groups such as the FUBAR “Human Rights Watch”, which still insists that three hots and a cot at Gitmo are torture.

Just a note, field agents at the FBI who are familiar with this case have a completely different view of Mr. Arar, and his “claims”.

Color me at this point extremely suspicious of his story regardless of what this “commission” found. I’m on it, and will get back to everyone. Something stinks.

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