Government leaks part of a cover up: Arar lawyer

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2006/september/25/arar/&c=1

Maher Arar's lawyer says campaign to defame victim of extraordinary rendition intentional, willful misconduct
Following the 822-page judicial report that cleared Maher Arar, Lorne Waldman, Mr. Arar's lawyer, says government officials deliberately leaked damaging and false information about Mr. Arar in 2002 and 2003 in a sinister attempt to quash growing political pressures for a public inquiry.

Last week, with the sensational release of Justice Dennis O'Connor's report on the events surrounding the deportation, detention and torture of Mr. Arar in Syria, Mr. O'Connor called the government leaks of information about Mr. Arar–which suggested links to terrorism and al Qaeda–"deliberate" and "disheartening."

"Leaking information is a deliberate act. Moreover, some of the leaks relating to Mr. Arar were purposefully misleading in a way that was intended to do him harm. It is disturbing that there are officials in the Canadian public service who see fit to breach the public trust for their own purposes in this way," Mr. O'Connor wrote.

Mr. Waldman, a lawyer representing Mr. Arar in Mr. O'Connor's Commission of Inquiry, said that given Justice O'Connor's report, which did not find any evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Arar, the leaks suggest that some government officials were not trying to reveal the truth, but instead had another motivation–to cover up their mistakes and quash growing public and political support for a public inquiry into the affair.

"If they'd been successful in their campaign to defame Mr. Arar's reputation, and to prevent the calling of a public inquiry, we wouldn't now know all that we know about the incompetence of the RCMP investigation and all the other things that we've learned," Mr. Waldman said.

[CHIMO]

1. Yes

The misleading item in the headline is that it was not the government but the police that performed and executed this.

After 9/11 the word apparently went down to move everything and apparently, the loyal RCMP, did. So after the barn burnings and other escapades the loyal officers took over.(However they screwed the government by getting involved in the elections and showed their colours)

But the government has not been connected. However, this loyal conservative paper has to try and make a distinction with the "New Canadian Government".