Whisper
July 1st, 2008, 12:02 PM
A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Syrian-born Canadian man who had accused the United States of violating the law and his civil rights after he was detained at Kennedy Airport then sent to Syria (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) under what he claims was an act of “extraordinary rendition (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/e/extraordinary_rendition/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier).”
The man, Maher Arar (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/maher_arar/index.html?inline=nyt-per), attempted to win civil damages from United States officials in his suit, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that since he was never technically inside the United States, his claims could not be heard in the federal courts.
While stating that “threats to the nation’s security do not allow us to jettison principles of “simple justice and fair dealing,” the majority opinion ruled nonetheless that Mr. Arar, who was seized as he tried to change planes at Kennedy Airport while flying back to Canada (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/canada/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) from Switzerland, had no federal standing in his case and that the government did not violate the Torture Victim Protection Act by sending him abroad.
Mr. Arar, a telecommunications engineer, was detained at Kennedy Airport in September 2002 when immigration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) officers found his name on a terrorist watch list. After being held for several days in custody in New York, he was sent to Jordan by immigration officers and turned over to Syrian intelligence which, he claims, tortured him.
The Justice Department’s ethics office is currently examining the role of department lawyers in expelling Mr. Arar to Syria, which has long been identified by the State Department as using torture on prisoners. A district court in Brooklyn dismissed his suit in an initial round of litigation in 2006. A film released last year, “Rendition,” was loosely based on the case.
In an occasionally scathing dissent, one judge, Robert D. Sack, said that Mr. Arar’s suit should have been able to proceed because the argument that he was never really in the United States was “a legal fiction.”
“Arar was, in effect, abducted while attempting to transit at JFK Airport,” Judge Sack wrote. “And when he failed to give defendants the information they were looking for, and he refused to be sent ‘voluntarily’ to Syria, they forcibly sent him there to be detained and questioned under torture.”
The man, Maher Arar (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/maher_arar/index.html?inline=nyt-per), attempted to win civil damages from United States officials in his suit, but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that since he was never technically inside the United States, his claims could not be heard in the federal courts.
While stating that “threats to the nation’s security do not allow us to jettison principles of “simple justice and fair dealing,” the majority opinion ruled nonetheless that Mr. Arar, who was seized as he tried to change planes at Kennedy Airport while flying back to Canada (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/canada/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) from Switzerland, had no federal standing in his case and that the government did not violate the Torture Victim Protection Act by sending him abroad.
Mr. Arar, a telecommunications engineer, was detained at Kennedy Airport in September 2002 when immigration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) officers found his name on a terrorist watch list. After being held for several days in custody in New York, he was sent to Jordan by immigration officers and turned over to Syrian intelligence which, he claims, tortured him.
The Justice Department’s ethics office is currently examining the role of department lawyers in expelling Mr. Arar to Syria, which has long been identified by the State Department as using torture on prisoners. A district court in Brooklyn dismissed his suit in an initial round of litigation in 2006. A film released last year, “Rendition,” was loosely based on the case.
In an occasionally scathing dissent, one judge, Robert D. Sack, said that Mr. Arar’s suit should have been able to proceed because the argument that he was never really in the United States was “a legal fiction.”
“Arar was, in effect, abducted while attempting to transit at JFK Airport,” Judge Sack wrote. “And when he failed to give defendants the information they were looking for, and he refused to be sent ‘voluntarily’ to Syria, they forcibly sent him there to be detained and questioned under torture.”