Montreal and Ottawa — Maher Arar, reunited with his wife and children yesterday, thanked fellow Canadians as he arrived home after being held for more than a year in a Syrian jail as a suspected terrorist.
Neither Mr. Arar nor Canadian officials shed any light on the reasons for his detention, or for his sudden release on the weekend.
In Ottawa, Solicitor-General Wayne Easter rejected calls for a public investigation that have come from opposition and Liberal MPs and human-rights groups.
"I will not agree to an inquiry," he said.
Maher Arar arrives with his wife Monia Mazigh to speak to the media at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport in Montreal on Monday. (Andre Pichette/CP)
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U.S. authorities, who sent Mr. Arar to Syria after arresting him at John F. Kennedy International Airport last year, refused to comment on the surprise release.
Riad Saloojee, executive director of the Canadian section of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the federal government will still have to answer some troubling questions "before there can be any sense of closure in this case."
Mr. Arar made only a few brief comments publicly, confining himself to thanks.
He flew into Montreal's Dorval Airport from France, meeting his wife and two young children privately. He hugged the children and his wife, Monia Mazigh.
According to Mr. Saloojee, a family friend, Ms. Mazigh's first words to her husband were, "You're safe now."
Exhausted from his time in a Syrian prison and the long journey home, Mr. Arar thanked Canadians for their help in reuniting him with his wife and children.
"I'm very glad to get back home. I'm so excited to see my family again," Mr. Arar, 33, said in a barely audible voice. "My kids grew up in the past year. . . ."
Clutching his wife's hand under the table at an impromptu news conference at the airport, he then said, "I want to thank my fellow Canadians who helped to get me back."
Wearing a red Maple Leaf pin on his navy blue sweater, he looked pale and nervous. His wife, who led a year-long, high-profile effort to have him freed, said her husband's deportation from the United States and imprisonment in Syria "has been a terrible tragedy for our family."
Mr. Arar, an Ottawa resident, was arrested by U.S. officials at the New York airport while changing planes in September of last year. They deported him to his native Syria, even though he was travelling on a Canadian passport.
Syrian intelligence officials have told Canadian representatives they believe Mr. Arar belongs to the terrorist group al-Qaeda. The Syrians charged that Mr. Arar had received military training at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, an allegation his wife flatly denied.
Ms. Mazigh, angered by the suffering her family endured, vowed to find out why U.S. authorities arrested her husband and sent him to Syria instead of Canada.
"I thank all Canadians who helped us during this nightmare so that there would be justice for my husband." Shaking her right index finger, she added, "This is just a beginning of justice."
The family went off for a few quiet days together out of the spotlight without saying whether Mr. Arar had been tortured.
In due course, Ms. Mazigh said, "we will answer all of the questions of all Canadians. They must know the truth."
Mr. Saloojee, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Canada), said it was clear Mr. Arar had been mistreated. "He was clearly devastated physically and emotionally."
Arriving on an Air France flight from Paris, Mr. Arar met his wife, mother and mother-in-law before spending a couple of hours with his children and extended family.
Mr. Saloojee and Alex Neve, the secretary-general of the Canadian section of Amnesty International, witnessed the family reunion.
"It was pure and unbridled emotion to see the family reunited. . . . It was an overwhelming moment," Mr. Neve said.
He said the reports of torture have to be taken seriously, but Mr. Arar may not be able to speak publicly about his ordeal until he talks to his family.
Mr. Saloojee said Mr. Arar spoke mostly about his children, asking how they have been doing, rather than about his detention.
Mr. Arar's 19-month old son, Houd, did not know his father, Mr. Neve said. His daughter, Baraa, 6, has drawings she wants to show her father at home.
Mr. Arar was surprised that he was released, Mr. Neve said, and did not know his case was a cause célèbre in Canada. People from across the country expressed outrage at Mr. Arar's deportation. Mr. Saloojee said Mr. Arar expressed gratitude for Canada's "quiet diplomacy."
The Ottawa man had been scheduled to stand trial later this month in a Syrian military court but was unexpectedly released on Sunday.
Mr. Easter, the minister responsible for the RCMP, is to appear before a parliamentary committee Tuesday to answer questions about the case.
Mr. Neve said Mr. Arar might be able to seek compensation from Syria, Canada or the United States if an inquiry shows he was tortured and if any U.S. or Canadian officials were complicit in his wrongful deportation.
Mr. Neve said the United States got off easily. "The fact Canada pressured Syria but not the United States was a problem for us."
Two other Canadian citizens are being held in Syria, but the families of Abdullah Almalki and Arwad Al-Bouchi have not sought assistance from human-rights groups or the general public.
Mr. Saloojee said that now that Mr. Arar is safely home, Ottawa can explain what role the RCMP played in his original detention, what information Canadian agencies passed along to the Americans and whether that was the reason the Ottawa man was arrested in New York.
Mr. Easter has said that someone in the RCMP could have given U.S. officials incriminating information that caused them to place Mr. Arar's name on a border-point watch list.
Senior RCMP officials may not have known about it, he said earlier this year.
Mr. Saloojee said the Arar case sent a chill through Canada's Arab community, making many fearful that their own government could not protect them in the Middle East, a fear that has not abated.
At the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, officials refused to comment on the Arar case. In Washington, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department said he was not aware of Mr. Arar's release.
"I don't know that this gentleman was released, so I don't have any comment at this point. I'll have to look into that," spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Canadian and U.S. government sources say Mr. Arar was the target of a joint Canada-U.S. security investigation long before his arrest in New York. One U.S. source said information from the RCMP resulted in Mr. Arar being placed on the watch list that is used to screen arriving passengers at U.S. ports of entry.
The U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci, told a private gathering in Ottawa this spring that Canadian law-enforcement agencies didn't want Mr. Arar returned to this country.
Speaking to the Ottawa branch of the Harvard Club, Mr. Cellucci said: "Mr. Arar is very well known to Canadian law enforcement. They understand our handling of the case. They wouldn't be happy to see him come back to Canada."
