One-sided argument

National Security | Controversy over renditions focuses more on use of torture than a tool of justice | Priya Abraham

Arar testifies

Canadian Maher Arar was flying home from Tunisia in 2002 from a family vacation when he was arrested at New York's JFK airport, interrogated, and put on a private jet to Syria, his birth country. He spent the next year under torture in a jail cell 3 feet wide, 6 feet long, and 7 feet high in hopes he would reveal more about his alleged al-Qaeda connection. He apparently knew nothing, and authorities released him without charge.

Since then, Arar has become the poster child of everything that is wrong with the U.S. practice of extraordinary rendition, which usually involves kidnapping a suspected terrorist and moving him to detention—and often torture—in another country. "Since my return to Canada, my physical pain has slowly healed," Arar says. "I have lost confidence in myself and I live in constant fear of flying and being kidnapped again."