U.S. Secretly Rendered Man to Syria and Tortured Him

Maher Arar is a 34-year-old engineer and Canadian citizen born in Syria. According to Arar, in 2002, while he was in transit in New York City's JFK Airport, after coming back from a vacation with his family, he was interrogated and detained by U.S. Officials alleging presumed links to al-Qaeda. Days later, he was secretly rendered to Syria, where he was held for almost one year under no formal charges, constant torture --including severe beating and the constant threat to be tortured harder— and was forced to falsely confess his links to the organization.