The Torture Judge

[julialnyc]

The Torture Judge
U.S. court rules our government can break international laws to keep us safe
by Nat Hentoff
March 13th, 2006 12:45 AM
Federal judge David Trager: Am I my president's keeper?
Essentially you have a judge saying that assuming that U.S. officials sent Mr. Arar to be tortured, a judge can do nothing about it. Georgetown University law professor David Cole, New York Law Journal, February 17

In a startling, ominous decision—ignored by most of the press around the country—Federal District Judge David Trager, in the Eastern District of New York, has dismissed a lawsuit by a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who, during a stopover at Kennedy Airport on the way home to Canada after vacation, was kidnapped by CIA agents.

Arar was flown to Syria, where he was tortured for nearly a year in solitary confinement in a three-by-six-foot cell ("like a grave," he said). He became, internationally, one of the best-known victims of the CIA's extraordinary renditions—the sending of suspected terrorists to countries known for torturing their prisoners.

Released after his ordeal, Arar has not been charged with any involvement in terrorism, or anything else, by Syria or the United States. Stigmatized by his notoriety, still traumatized, unemployed, he is back in Canada, where the Canadian Parliament had opened an extensive and expensive public inquiry into his capture and torture. The United States refuses to cooperate in any way with this investigation.

Maher Arar sued for damages in federal court here (Maher Arar v. John Ashcroft, formerly Attorney General of the United States, et al.). Representing Arar for the New York–based Center for Constitutional Rights, David Cole predicts, and I agree, that if Judge Trager's ruling is upheld in an appeal to the Supreme Court, the CIA and other American officials will be told "they have a green light to do to others what they did to Arar"—no matter what international or U.S. laws are violated in the name of national security.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0611,hentoff,72497,6.html

[LisaLynne]

1. Kick for the afternoon. nt

[julialnyc]

2. did anyone catch David Cole on tv last night?

I forget what program I was watching-- maybe Countdown with Keith? But Cole was a guest