Extraordinary Rendition and the Wages of Hypocrisy

"Extraordinary rendition" is the governmental transfer without legal process of a person to another country where it is more likely than not he will be tortured. The case of the Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar illustrates the gap between extraordinary rendition and the mundane legal process of extradition.

Detained in September 2002, at John F. Kennedy Airport while returning home from vacation, Arar was held in solitary confinement without access to legal counsel in a Brooklyn detention center on suspicion of being a member of al-Qaeda. He was first shipped off to Jordan against his will and subsequently transferred to a Syrian prison, where he was detained for nearly a year without charge or legal process. The 35-year-old software engineer recounts being beaten repeatedly with two-inch thick cables and threatened with electrocution while being questioned about al-Qaeda. After his release, the Syrian ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, declared that Syria had found no evidence of Arar's complicity in terrorism.1 Arar's case is not unusual. There is substantial anecdotal evidence that the United States routinely and knowingly "outsources" the application of torture by transferring terrorist suspects to countries that violate international human rights norms.