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DoJ Confirms Internal Investigation in Case of Maher Arar
Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, revealed yesterday that his department had reopened the investigation into whether U.S. officials knew that Canadian citizen, Maher Arar would be tortured when he was turned over to Syria following his U.S. detainment. The investigation was reopened based on "new information," Skinner testified in his appearance before the House Subcommittee on International Relations, Human Rights and Oversight.
The Inspector General also revealed that the Department of Justice's own Office of Professional Responsibility has started an investigation into the role of the DoJ lawyers in the case.
From the New York Times:
A Justice Department spokesman, Peter A. Carr, said that its inquiry, by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, was begun in March 2007 and was examining the role of department lawyers in expelling Maher Arar to Syria, which has long been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture on prisoners.
The DoJ Office of Professional Responsibility already has its hands full with a number of investigations into the Justice Department's role in Bush Administration scandals. OPR is currently investigating allegations of selective prosecution relating to the prosecutions of Don Siegelman ; John Yoo's torture memos; Monica Goodling's possible firing of an attorney because she'd heard a rumor that he might be gay; officials who gave legal approval to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques; the role of Department of Justice attorneys in the authorization and oversight of the warrantless electronic surveillance program and of course the probe into the firings of U.S. Attorneys.
Josh
Zachary
"OPR is currently investigating allegations of selective prosecution relating to the prosecutions of Don Siegelman ; John Yoo's torture memos; Monica Goodling's possible firing of an attorney because she'd heard a rumor that he might be gay; officials who gave legal approval to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques; the role of Department of Justice attorneys in the authorization and oversight of the warrantless electronic surveillance program and of course the probe into the firings of U.S. attorneys general."
All that criminal behavior to investigate yet nothing is likely to happen with a Bush appointed OPR that reports directly to a Bush appointed Attorney General.
June 6, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Government of Canada stood up a full-fledged inquiry into the matter. You may want to browse those final government reports:
http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/206/301/pco-bcp/commissions/maher_arar/07-09-13/www.ararcommission.ca/eng/26.htm
June 6, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
So much muck to cover up before Jan 20, 2009...
Must get each one of these indicted and then dismissed with prejudice.
OPR needs more staff.
June 6, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The dominos are starting to fall, and the trail leads to the top of the DOJ and to the White House.
The whole "rendition" program is a disgrace. How many totally innocent people were sent off to hell based on whim? What a black eye for true democracy.
(BTW - The possibly gay employee fired at Monica Goodling's request was female, not male.)
June 6, 2008 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Merar," "Mehar," a male-female mixup.
And while you're still making corrections, you might want to delete the very last word of the post, "general."
US attorneys were fired, not US attorneys general
June 6, 2008 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
So let's see.
About 4 years after Arar's lawsuit was filed, OPR finally gets around in March 07 to realizing that hey - DOJ lawyers helped arrange for Arar's torture and maybe we should investigate. You know, begin investigating in time to have everything whitewashed and pardoned by no later than when Bush leaves office. This would be how many years after Clement certified to the the SUp Ct (with the Arar lawsuit filed and pending) that the US didn't do "things like" torture. Anyone investigating what Clement knew or did not know when he made those representations to the court? What with the lawsuits filed, Abu Ghraib pictures sitting around on desks, stacks and stacks of complaint from soldiers and FBI officers and civilian Pentagon folks about abuses of detainees who were also CIVILIAN detaineees - - Clement certifies on behalf of the Justice Department of the United States of America to the Supreme Court of the United States of America that torture and abuses "like' torture simply are not occuring and would not be allowed or endorsed. With all the Yoo and Bybee and Flannigan and Philbin memos out there, Clement made those certifications.
You might think there should be room for one more OPR investigation if you actually believed that any part of the loyal Bushie, torture badge DOJ was anything other than completely immoral, corrupt and focused on cover up of Executive crimes, using the power and former credibility of their offices to achieve such coverups.
And if you believe that, the Nigerian scammers must love you much.
June 6, 2008 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Canadians are none to happy with us. Among the Gitmo show trials scheduled in the run up to election day is Canadian citizen Omar Khadr. McGill Reporter from October 2007's "Guantanamo Bay: Justice denied":
With no expectation that Bush will change his posture, our relations with our northern neighbor will get a whole lot worse before they get better.
-AF
Andrew Sullivan Is A Fraud
June 6, 2008 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what happens when the International War Crimes Tribunal pays a European or South African private military contractor to rendition the people responsible from the USA to the Hague?
June 7, 2008 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds to me like somebody in DOJ has WAY too much spare time on their hands.
JT
Ultimate Anonymity
June 7, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
My question would be "why did you send him to Syria if it was not with the intent that he e tortured"? Why not just keep him at Gitmo.
June 8, 2008 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The ignorance of the MSM is shocking in it's vitality and smugness.
THE REAL STORY IS:
----TORTURE is sociopathic and intentional while also totally irrelvent by virtue of FBI/CIA access to SUBLIMINAL COINTEL DEBRIEFING TECNIQUES.
----The DOJ OPR INVESTIGATIONS that have been released to the MSM does not cover THE FAR MORE OUTRAGEOUS SHOCKING SCANDALS THAT ARE TOO DAMAGING TO THE GOP/FBI/NSA/CIA/WHITE HOUSE.
I'm talking about the military hiding the punk corruption and sociopathic tendencies behind a corporate front so that NOBODY FINDS OUT THAT US CITIZENS ARE TORTURED AND FRIED AND HOSPITALIZED WITH DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS that focus MICROWAVE RADIATION at witnesses in their own homes?
DR MARK GORDON WAS MONITORED WITH A PIN HOLE SPY CAMERA IN HIS FBI APARTMENT IN ST. PAUL, MN...AND WAS COMPLAINING OF SYMPTOMS THAT CAN ONLY COME FROM USE OF MICROWAVE RADIATION (DOD's DARPA Weapon called DEW).
This has gone on for along time--See, FBI special agent GERAL SOSBEE'S WEBSITE to see "what happens to enemies of the right wing corrupt Police State" that FBI HQ knows about, and REFUSES TO BRIEF CONGRESS ON, WHILE PAT LEAHY, BIDEN, PELOSI, CONYERS, WAXMAN, AND REID pretend that "....THEY DID NOT HEAR ME WHEN i SAID THAT TAMPERING WITH WITNESSES AND OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE" is a common m.o. by this police state.....with FBI HQ TAKING PART IN THE CONSPIRACIES TO COMMIT FED CRIMES OF VIOLENCE (Rich Gordon, Defenbaugh, Kabieseman, Dr. Gordon, Thomas Bean, Leroy Rogers, Jon Van Patten, Christina Moore, JFK JR, Carnehan, Wellstone, Ghigliotti, Paul Wilcher).
HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE US SEN JUD COMM, AND US HOUSE JUD COMM refusing to "do their own interviews" with reliable witnesses...offering to take an $85 dollar polygraph exam?
June 9, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink