CSIS suspected U.S. would deport Arar to be tortured: documents

"I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him," a Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer based in Washington wrote in a report dated Oct. 10, 2002, according to documents released Thursday.

The note was written days after the United States deported Arar, who was returning to Canada from a vacation in 2002 when he was detained during a flight stopover in New York, wrongly accused of links to al-Qaeda and sent to Syria, where he was jailed for months and tortured.

The newly released documents also say the CSIS operative "spoke of a trend they had noted lately that when the CIA or FBI cannot legally hold a terrorist subject, or wish a target questioned in a firm manner, they have them rendered to countries willing to fulfill that role. He said Mr. Arar was a case in point."

The newly-released portions also state that Canadian authorities relied on a country with a poor record on human rights for information to obtain a search warrant. The disclosed portions said investigators did not disclose that the information used to get the warrants "might be the product of torture."