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Last Updated Tue, 09 Mar 2004 18:27:07
OTTAWA - Ottawa's police chief admitted Tuesday that his force was part of a joint operation investigating Maher Arar before he was deported to a Syrian prison.
INDEPTH: Maher Arar
"The Ottawa Police Service played a role in the Maher Arar case," police Chief Vince Bevan said at a community meeting with members of the Muslim and Arab community. Bevan told Muslim leaders in Ottawa that his force's involvement "took place as part of joint police operations with other national security agencies, including the RCMP."
"To put it plainly, one of the investigations in which the Ottawa Police Service played a role was the Arar case," he said.
Bevan said he could not provide any details about the role of his department in advance of a government inquiry into the deportation of Arar.
U.S. authorities detained Arar at Kennedy airport in New York in September 2002, while he was on a flight back to Canada from Tunisia.
He was accused of having ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and deported to Syria, the country where he was born. Arar claims he was tortured repeatedly while in custody. He was released a year later.
Bevan said he was revealing his force's involvement because he wanted the Musilm and Arab community to know before it became public knowledge during the inquiry.
"In order to build on the trust that exists between us, which has been built over a number of years, we believe it is important that this information be in the hands of the community in a timely fashion."
Written by CBC News Online staff